Easter

‘Fear not; I am the First and the Last, I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore’ (Rev. 1:17-18). These are the words of the Risen Christ to His beloved disciple, John the Theologian. These words, describe the path of the Lord, but also of man, which goes through death and leads to eternal life.

The Lord loved mankind with a perfect love. He died for all who were condemned to death because of the ancestral sin. The unjust death of the Lord became a condemnation of the just death of all men, bestowing upon them eternal salvation. ‘Christ is risen from the dead, and there is none left in the tomb.’

The more righteous, and in accordance with Christ’s commandments, the deadening which man bears within him, the more perfect will be the condemnation of death in his person, and the more certain his entrance into the Living Presence of the Risen Lord.

This is what the Lord desired to convey with His evangelical word: ‘Only when a grain of wheat falls onto the ground and dies, will it sprout and bring forth much fruit.’ The sufferings of this life, when they are endured without sin, with faith, and even with gratitude, condemn the death we have inherited through the sin which preceded.

For this reason precisely, the Apostle Paul suggests as a program of life: ‘Remember Jesus Christ raised from the dead’ (2 Tim. 2:8). That is, we need to remember that for us to become partakers of Christ’s victory over death, we have to follow the example of His path.

In other words, in order to keep the sensation of the Presence of Christ alive within us, we must constantly taste of death. Thus we will put to death any sinful malice which would hinder His Spirit from dwelling within us. This paradoxical in-dwelling is the pledge of the better resurrection which we await.

Every movement through which we draw nigh to the place of the Living Presence of Christ is for us the eternal Easter.
Our entire life becomes a journey:
from despondency to godly desire,

from darkness of ignorance to the light of the knowledge of God,

from the narrowness of self-love to the enlargement of Divine Love,

from the slavery of sin to the freedom of the children of God,

from temporal death to imperishable, never-ending life,

from earth to heaven,

from man to God.

CHRIST (as Righteous and Sinless) IS RISEN FROM THE DEAD,
BY DEATH (voluntary and without cause) HE HATH OVERCOME DEATH (the just penance for sin),
AND TO THEM IN THE GRAVE HATH HE GIVEN (unfading) LIFE (as a pure gift of His Goodness). Z.