This Easter season is an opportune time to meditate on the Resurrection narratives in all four Gospels.

We clearly see in these passages the astonishing mystery of the Risen Christ.

No one expected Jesus to rise from the dead, not even His followers.

The Scriptures attest to their disbelief, their resistance to the testimony of the women who came from the tomb.

But they came to believe the Lord assuredly rose in the flesh; He eats a piece of fish with His disciples, Thomas touches His wounds, and Mary embraces His feet.

The Risen Lord is not just a spiritual phantasm. Nor is He simply a resuscitated corpse. He appears and disappears at will. His followers do not immediately recognize Him. There is something qualitatively different about the Risen Lord.

The Resurrection is both a spiritual and corporeal transformation of the earthly Jesus.

What does this mystery mean for us? We believe in the Resurrection of Christ as the cornerstone of our Faith.

The joy of Easter gives the pain of Good Friday its inherent meaning.

The Paschal Mystery restores our identity as children of God, forgives our sins, and opens the gates of Heaven to us.

We cannot overestimate the importance of the Resurrection as the pivot point of human history, as the world’s most beautiful, true, and good fact.  

A relationship with Christ

The corporality of the Risen Christ proclaims that, in rising from the dead, the Lord has also redeemed our bodies and our earthly life in the here and now.

Jesus wants to share with us now the richness of relationship with Him in the communion of the Holy Trinity.

We do not have to wait until we are dead to taste the abundant grace He wants to share with us.

We cannot afford to wait that long!

Through an enduring faith, a constant participation in the sacraments, and a steadfast pursuit of holiness, Jesus’ words in John 14:23 come true for us: “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word and My Father will love him and We will come to him and make Our dwelling with him.”

The Lord wants to dwell in us now and for us to dwell in Him.

This astonishing union with God is the fruit of the entire mission of the Lord.

We find salvation in this sacred indwelling of the Most Blessed Trinity within us!

Through Easter, God has made us a new creation!

Accept His invitation

This new risen life in the Lord is a freely offered divine gift, but it requires our ongoing consent and cooperation.

God never forces His grace upon us.

To accept this overwhelming, life-changing invitation to abide in communion with Christ means putting Him at the center of our lives — our thoughts, values, actions, and desires.

It means making the Eucharist, Confession, daily prayer, and study of the Scriptures regular practices.

To live in Christ is to become an overflowing fount of charity and mercy to our brothers and sisters, especially the poor, the sick, and the forgotten.

To be a new creation in the Lord is to love, forgive, and serve everyone around us, beginning with our family, friends, and co-workers.

In these ways, we become salt and light to a world often split asunder by violence, despair, poverty, and conflict.

His abundant love

As completely as the Father loves the Son, so does the Son love us.

As the Father sent the Son, so does the Son send us.

As the Son abides with the Father, so too does the Son wish to abide with us.

Such a love is incomprehensible to us.

So often, we experience love as conditional, limited, and temporary.

Christ’s love for us is unconditional, infinite, and eternal.

We must experience the Risen Christ in order to believe in Him, just like the Apostles did.

We must come to know ourselves as infinitely loved by God before we can become witnesses of that divine fire to others.

We must taste the abundance of this new life in order to know it is real.

And so we have, in the power of Baptism, in the glory of the Eucharist, in the mercy of the confessional, in the quiet moments of prayer, in the love of others, in the beauty of the world, in the joy in our hearts, and even in the trials and crosses which come our way.

I invite you to meditate on the Resurrection narratives in these Easter days.

They teach us all we need to know to live this saving communion with the Lord.