I have a new article up at NewEvangelizers.com.
We have now come through the long lonely days of Lent to celebrate new life in Easter.
So now what?
Lent is the spiritual boot camp where we are training our souls towards greater holiness. We concentrate on the sacrificial love of God and meditate on his Passion on the cross. Catholics have many devotions to the suffering of Our Lord. Sometimes we get accused of being morbidly obsessed with guilt and suffering. And while it is fundamentally necessary to enter into the cross, the story does not stop there.
The cross must end with Resurrection.
This is difficult for many of us. None of us have experienced the full Resurrection. But all of us have suffered in this world. The cross feels more tangible to us than the Glorified Body awaiting us. As Fr. Benedict Groeschel once said, “I don’t know what it’s like to rise from the dead. But I’ve been to Calvary several times in my life already.”
It takes no faith to believe that we will suffer in this world. The faith comes in believing that the suffering end. But unlike Buddhists who believe that the most we can hope for is simply an end to our pain, we Christians are promised a whole new life.
When Christ rose from the dead, it was not merely a resuscitation. Death is the separation of the body and the soul. A resuscitation is when the soul is reunited with the mortal body. We see this all the time on medical TV shows where they do CPR. And it is also what occurred with Lazarus, Jairus’ daughter, and the widow’s son. Jesus raised those last three people from the dead and their souls were reunited with their bodies. But those were not Resurrections, they were resuscitations.
What is the difference?
In a resuscitation, the reunion of body and soul is temporary because eventually the mortal body will get old, sick, and die. Lazarus, Jairus’ daughter, and the widow’s son all eventually succumbed to death.
But Jesus was not resuscitated. He Resurrected.
You can read the entire article here.
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