Christ is alive in His church

By Rev. Fr. Daniel Iccalso

“Tell us, Mary, say, what thou didst see on the way? The tomb the living did enclose: I saw Christ’s glory as he rose. Angels there attesting, shroud with grave-clothes resting. Christ, my hope has risen!” So sings the Church in the sequence prior to the Gospel reading during Easter Octave masses.

Empty tomb

Right after the Sabbath, Mary Magdalen and Mary, the mother of James, and Salome bought spices with which to go and anoint the dead body of Jesus. Almost at dawn the following day they came to the tomb (cf. Mk. 16:1-2).

And upon entering they are distraught, for the sepulchre was empty. They cannot find the body of our Lord. A youth, clothed in white, says to them: “Do not be afraid. I know you seek Jesus of Nazareth: “he is not here, for he has risen, as he said” (Mt. 28:5).

He has risen! Jesus has risen: he is not in the tomb. Life has overcome death.

This is the most powerful proof of Jesus’ divinity. He is truly the Lord of life. Only God has such power over life and death.

The Risen Lord appeared to his most Holy Mother. “He appeared to Mary Magdalen, who is carried away by love. And to Peter and the rest of the Apostles. And to you and me, who are his disciples and more in love than Mary Magdalen: the things we say to Him!

“May we never die through sin; may our spiritual resurrection be eternal (St. Josemaria, Holy Rosary).

By his resurrection, Jesus teaches us that we too will return to life. Christ, by his glorious Resurrection through which he is the “first-born from the dead” (1 Cor 15:20; Col. 1:18; Rev. 1:5), is also the cause and model of our resurrection. In this, his Resurrection is different from that of Lazarus, for ‘‘Christ being raised from the dead will never die again” (Rm. 6:9), whereas Lazarus returned to earthly life, later to die again.

Christ is present in Christians

Christ is alive! This is the great truth that fills our faith with meaning. Jesus, who died on the cross, has risen. He has triumphed over death; he has overcome sorrow, anguish and the power of darkness.

“Do not be terrified” was how the angels greeted the women who came to the tomb. “Do not be terrified. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here.” “This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

Easter is a time of great joy. This happiness is not confined to this period of the liturgical year, but to be found really and fully in the Christian’s heart. For Christ is alive.

Jesus is not someone who has gone, someone who existed for a time and then passed on, leaving us a wonderful example and a great memory.

By no means, Christ is alive. Jesus is the Emmanuel: God with us. His resurrection shows us that God does not abandon his own. He promised he would not: “Can a woman forget her baby that is still unweaned, pity no longer the son she bore in her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.” And he has kept his promise. His delight is still to be with the sons of men.

Foundation of Christian faith

The Resurrection of Christ is the very basis of the Christian faith. “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.” What Paul wrote to the Corinthians continues to hold true today: “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15:14, 19).

If Christ died but did not rise again, our faith would be without foundation. If Christ remained in death, then his Cross was a senselessly cruel death that has redeemed us from nothing. Our love would be directed toward a dead man, a corpse, and our faith would be the remembrance of a man from the past, but not of him who has said: “I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Mt. 28:20). We could place our hope in this life alone and would have to say: “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” (1 Cor. 15:32).

“But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:20). The one “Paschal Mystery”, the death and Resurrection of Jesus (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 638), is the central element of our faith. Just as Jesus’ death really occurred, so, too, did his Resurrection.

The Risen One appeared, it is true, only to those witnesses chosen by him, whereas everyone in Jerusalem saw him die on the Cross. Nevertheless, his Resurrection is an event that left certain historically verifiable traces.

The first such trace is the empty tomb (CCC 640). Not for even one day would Jesus’ disciples in Jerusalem talk of his Resurrection if the fact of the empty tomb had not been publicly visible. Of course, the empty tomb is still not sufficient to prove that Jesus rose: his body could have been carried away (cf. Mt. 28:15; Jn. 20:13-15).

Only through Jesus’ appearances to his disciples does it become clear why his body is no longer in the tomb: “He is not here, but has risen” (Lk. 24:6). The witnesses to his appearances, despite all the differences in their reports, confirm that Jesus appeared to them bodily, visibly, and palpably, and that they could recognise who he was by the marks of his wounds (Jn. 20:27).

Christ truly rose again! This certainty of faith is the foundation of our hope. It confirms that Jesus is really the Son of God (CCC 653), that his words are reliable and true, that he has the power to forgive sins, and that he died for us, indeed, for me.

Because Christ has risen, he remains present in his Word, in the communion of the Church, in the poor and the afflicted, in his sacraments, in the priests, and “most especially in the Eucharistic species” (CCC 1373): “Christ [is] in you, the hope of glory” (Col 1:27).

Christ is present in the Church

Let us ask ourselves: What do we really celebrate in the liturgy? “We proclaim your death, O Lord, and we confess your resurrection until you come.”

Christ is the centre of the liturgy. At Christmas we celebrate his birth, at Easter his Passion and Resurrection. We celebrate his Baptism and his Transfiguration, his 40 days in the wilderness and his Ascension into Heaven.

But “celebrating” here does not mean merely “recalling”. It has the significance of a “now”: in the Eucharist Christ’s death and Resurrection are present; he himself is there. This is what is unique about Christian liturgy: it is Christ’s work. In what sense?

“But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son” (Gal 4:4). The “work of God” is the sending of his Son. It reveals “the mystery which was kept secret for long ages” (Rom. 16:25). It opens the mystery of love that is God himself (1 Jn. 4:16), the eternal communion of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The final goal of all God’s works is that we, and through us the whole of creation, be taken up into the communion of the triune God (CCC 260). To achieve this goal, God sent his Son “to unite all things in [Christ]” (Eph 1:10).

The “work” of Jesus, his life, death, and Resurrection, is the “great liturgy” through which the Father gives us his life, his grace (Rom 8:32). Christ is the real “liturgist” of this liturgy.

Jesus Christ is risen. “All that he did and suffered for all men… participates in the divine eternity” (CCC 1085). His Cross and Resurrection are something perpetual, for in heaven “Christ permanently exercises his priesthood” (CCC 662), When we on earth celebrate the liturgy, we participate in this heavenly liturgy (CCC 1090). Then Christ is in our midst with all that he did and suffered for us.

The risen Lord is now with us in many different ways: through his Word, which, when it is read in the liturgy, he himself speaks to us; in the common prayer of the faithful, when he is “in the midst of them” (Mt. 18:20); through his apostles and their successors, to whom he has entrusted “his power of sanctifying” (CCC 1087), especially in the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Above all he is present under the Eucharistic species (CCC 1088). It is his liturgy; we celebrate it through him, with him, in him (cf. Schornbon, Living the Catechism of the Catholic Church). Let us, therefore, seek this God of ours who is so close to us.

How fortunate we are to have a God who is remarkably accessible to us. May we deal with him more lovingly and devoutly in the Eucharist and in prayer.

Courtesy: Catholic Messenger