Meditations on Easter

He is Risen!

From Brother Giles

Today is a day of great rejoicing in the Church and in the world. Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed!

For many of us, it marks the end of Lent, a time of prayer and fasting, a time of focus on the sufferings of Christ. We do this so that we may share in His glory, and that is all good and true. But it's not enough.

That's because we have a tendency to look at the negative. It's perfectly understandable; we are part of a fallen race, the human race. Yes, Christ is Risen and He has redeemed us, but despite our best efforts, we still sin anyway. But what if...what if we're looking at it the wrong way?

I've said in a previous post that the Passion of Christ wasn't His suffering and death, it was His Passion to create life. God is Happy, and He wants us to be Happy. He wants YOU to be happy  ("I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." Jn 10:10, and      "I have said these things to you so that My joy may be in you, and your joy may be complete." Jn. 15:11)

Meditating on this Vigil night of Our Lord's Resurrection, it strikes me that maybe God isn't only showing His power over death and sin. Maybe He's also trying to show us how to be full of joy.

It seems to me that, if we want to be Happy the way God is Happy, then we must be like God is. Loving. Caring. Self-sacrificing.  Merciful. Forgiving.

Maybe we've been missing part of the point of Lent and Easter. Maybe God's been trying to tell us all along that, rather than focus on our sinfulness and depravity, we should be focusing on His Passion to create life. 

This brings us to the great mystery of redemption: the way Jesus chose to create life was to come to us who dwell in the valley of the shadow of death, in order to bring us life. And the way He brought life was to enter into death itself.

Maybe the message of Easter isn't that (or, at least, only that), despite how awful we are, God loves us anyway. Maybe the full message of Easter is: "My Passion to create life is so great, I was not afraid to become a Man and enter into death itself, so that I might conquer it." Maybe what Jesus has been trying to tell us all along is that we need to stop being so afraid of death. Because now it's the way to Life.

The fact is, if we want to be Happy the way God is Happy, then we must share in His Passion to create Life. New life. More abundant life. And if the way to create this new life, and therefore the way to be Happy, is to not be afraid to die, then perhaps our focus can be on learning about Happiness, not on misery and suffering. Because if we think our misery will make us pleasing to God, we've missed the point of Easter.

If we do this, then the sufferings of this life will take their proper perspective. "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us." Romans 8:18

We will suffer in this life, that is certain. But perhaps if we see Christ's Passion as a Passion to create life, then, rather than focus on sufferings and thinking we will be rewarded for them, we can focus on the creation of new life. 

The way to be truly pleasing to God is to learn to share in His Happiness, His Joy. Because nothing makes a Happy person happier than to share that Happiness with another.

May the Joy and Happiness of the Resurrection of Our Lord come down upon us all and remain with us forever...and may we attain to it by learning not to be so afraid of entering into His Happiness. "Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. John 12:24"

Additional commentary from Veronica, Sister in Christ

There are a lot of us who struggle with perfectionism. Many who base our identity, our goodness, and our value on our performance. Many of us who haven't received the emotional care and validation as children from our caretakers. For many of us, focusing on our sinfulness and depravity, is a difficult endeavor, and one that can leave us discouraged and disheartened, especially if we don't bring Jesus into these spaces.

When we try our absolute best to be good and avoid sin and love God, when we try to check all the boxes (fasting, prayers, almsgiving, Mass, Confession, Adoration, Rosary) in order to please God and get a sense of self worth, and we still fail (because no matter how much we try, we will still sin), and all we focus on is the message of how "We crucified Our Lord! We are the same with the ones who yelled 'Crucify HIM! Crucify HIM!'", if we stop here we run the risk of falling into despair. And how would we not? We try our best and we are no better than the worst. 

I am not saying that we should ignore our sin and our wretchedness. That would be foolish, because in doing that, we would not be able to allow the Lord to come into our brokenness and heal our wounds with His perfect Love and Mercy. But I would encourage us all to take the next step, the step which Brother Giles focused on. The step towards Happiness.

John 10:10 is very dear to my heart. It reveals the essence of Jesus' sacrifice. "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." Yes, Jesus came so that, by His Passion, Death and Resurrection, we might have life. And not just an ordinary life. Abundant life. Eternal life. Happiness.

There is a proper place for guilt and sorrow for our sins. But let us not remain stuck there. Jesus doesn't want us to remain in a perpetual Good Friday, forever stuck on a cross. He didn't came to shame us and guilt us into submission. He came to love us, to reveal to us that our identity is in Him, as the Good Father's beloved, cherished and precious son or daughter.  Jesus came to give us freedom. Freedom from sin. Freedom to happiness. Freedom to choose Him and to be with Him. Now and forever.

During this Easter season let us all step into Jesus' Resurrection, and be not afraid! He wants us happy, and He wants to make us happy. He is waiting for each and everyone of us with open arms.

Brother Giles and Veronica wish you a most blessed Easter.

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