We are keeping today the Resurrection of
Christ which is the victory of God over death but also over
evil. But this victory is not won by God alone. When the Son of
God became Man it is in His humanity by His Divine power that He
overcame evil. And so let us rejoice not only in the love of
God, in the mercy of God, in the greatness of God, in His
generosity, but let us rejoice also in the fact that we, human
beings are capable of uniting with God in such a way, in such a
manner that in and through us evil may be destroyed. Not only
our private sin, not only our weakness, but “the evil one", the
one that is a tempter, the one that tried in the wilderness to
overcome the Divine through the human. Let us be grateful to God
for His victory but let us rejoice in the depth and wastness and
the infinite possibilities of our humanity.
But if this be true, let us remember that the
victory won by Christ in our humanity is also a call for us
because Christ is risen, but the risen Christ still wears on His
body the marks of His Passion. His hands are still wounded with
nails, His feet are still pierced with them, His side is still
marked by the spear, His forehead is still wounded by the crown
of thorns and they will never be healed until there is one
sinner on earth, and this sinner may be me, it may be each of
us. Let us then take the victory of God and the price to Him in
earnest. Let us realise what it means that I am in a position to
let Christ crucified, and worst than that - I may be among those
who did crucify and are crucifying Him if I join the crowd of
those who willfully sin against God. And I may be making heavier
the cross upon which He is nailed because in baptism, through
baptism we have become all of us living members of the body of
Christ. And when we submit this body, this soul, this mind, this
heart, this will to the power of Satan it is Christ Whom we make
again a suffer on earth.
But there is more to it. Our vocation is to
be on earth, because we are Christ’s own, what He has been in
the days of His incarnation. We are sent into the world to win
by His power, with Him the victory which He had already won, but
which must be won day in day out over ourselves and over all
evil that possesses those people whom He has come to save. We
are sent like sheep among wolves, we are sent to live and to die
if necessary, for other to live and to enter life eternal. Let
us therefore take this Feast of the Resurrection as a sign of
the victory that is really won, and as a call to us to enter
into His Passion and together with Him to win ourselves and
every person around us. Amen. |