Easter Sunday is
here once again. Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
Many secular ideas, traditions, and customs have found their way into
our culture at Easter (as well as
other sacred times like Christmas). They are not necessarily bad in and of themselves. However, they tend to miss the profound Christian spiritual message.
For us as Christians, nothing is really more important than Christ conquering sin and
death and rising from the dead. Easter is about Resurrection. It is about eternal life. It is about hope.
Starting a church the way Christ
did seems like it should have been a recipe
for disaster. Pick a rag-tag bunch of
mostly uneducated disciples—one who denies you when the going gets tough (Peter) and one who
betrays you (Judas). Preach to the
general public for only a few years, very mysteriously at times. Pick
an area of the world oppressed by foreign rule.
Pick a time in history without the internet,
Twitter, radio, television,
newspapers or mass media as we know
it today. Allow yourself to be tortured
and then put to death without
offering resistance.
Should the Catholic Church still be around over 2000 years later? Not if it were solely a human endeavor!
When everything seemed like
failure, the Risen Jesus appeared to the disciples:
While
they were still speaking . . . (Jesus) stood in their midst and said to them,
"Peace be with you." But they
were startled and terrified and thought that they were seeing a ghost. Then he said to them, "Why are you
troubled? And why do questions arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my
feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and
see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have."
And as he said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. (Luke 24:36-40)
Resurrection made all the
difference, then and now.
The Catholic Church still remains despite all obstacles, built on the
foundation of Christ—the Risen
Christ. The message of Jesus
continues to be proclaimed and offers salvation and hope to those who willingly
accept it and let their lives be guided and changed by it.
May the joy of Easter bring meaning and hope to your lives, today and every day!
Happy Easter Sunday!
Fr. Ed Namiotka
No comments:
Post a Comment