The Resurrection

from Venerable Fulton J. Sheen

Our Blessed Lord compared Himself to a seed, saying that unless the seed fell to the ground and died, it would not spring forth to life. He now by the power of God rises with the flowers of springtime in the newness of life, and gives to the earth the only serious wound it ever received – the irreparable wound of an empty grave.

The birth of the Son of God in the form of man was announced to a Virgin; the first announcement of His Resurrection was made to a repentant sinner, Magdalen, that none of us would be without hope. Thomas the Apostle would not believe until he had put his hand into His side, and his fingers into our Lord’s hands. Thus do we know that our Lord kept not His wounds but His scars as proof of His love: “With these was I wounded in the house of those who love Me.”

The Resurrection begins to affect our lives the day of Baptism. When baptized, we are plunged into the waters as if “buried in the sepulcher to sin and death; emerging from the waters clothed with grace as the principle of Divine Love, we are like the Christ rising from the tomb in the glory of the Resurrection.”

Though we are risen in spirit with Christ, so that “our conversation is in heaven,” our bodies will not share that glory until our final resurrection. In the meantime our body must be crucified with Christ’s that we may rise with Christ.

On the road to Emmaus on Easter Sunday, our Lord said to His disciples, “Was it not to be expected that the Christ should undergo these sufferings, and enter into His glory?” But if that be the law of Innocence, then how shall we, the guilty, hope to escape from it?

The Ascension