Our daily resurrections

OUR Christian faith teaches us that there will be the

resurrection of the dead at the end of time. That’s what we profess in

the Creed: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church,

the communion of saints, the resurrection of the body, and life

everlasting. Amen.”

            This truth of our faith is supposed to be the consequence

of the resurrection of Christ which signifies the completion of his

redemptive work on our behalf. We too are supposed to take part of

this resurrection, as long as we also take part of Christ’s death.

            St. Paul teaches that to us very clearly: “If we be dead

with Christ, we believe that we shall live also together with Christ.”

(Rom 6,8)

            This truth is not meant to take place only at the end of

time. What is implied is that we need to live it in a daily basis. We

can make use of our usual drama in life as a way to live out the very

passion, death and resurrection of Christ.

            In other words, our earthly day-to-day life becomes the

precious time of rehearsal for the final and crucial moment of our

death. Our death should be a dying with Christ so that we too can rise

with him.

            We need to be aware of this very important significance

and purpose of our life here on earth, and to act on it accordingly.

Everything that happens in our life can and should be related to this

significance and purpose of our life. Nothing in our life, whether

humanly good or bad, right or wrong, is irrelevant to our life’s

purpose.

            We should be wary of our tendency to degrade our life’s

true and ultimate meaning and purpose. That happens when our

understanding of our life’s purpose and our reactions to the different

events of our life are derived simply from our human estimations of

things, as from our senses and emotions alone, or from some sciences

or philosophies or ideologies or superstitions.

            With these attitudes and frame of mind, we put ourselves

vulnerable to despair and helplessness, since we would not be able to

cope with all the trials and challenges of life. We would be tying the

hands of God who knows how to resolve even our most unsolvable

predicaments.

            We have to strengthen our faith, deepen it such that it is

gives shape and direction to our thoughts, desires, words and deeds.

Our faith is the beginning of God being with us, sharing what he knows

and what he has with us, like the power to suffer all the consequences

of sin including death, and to rise from the dead.

            This great gift would be useless if we do not make use of

it. Let’s be aware of it, study it and start to make use of it.

            Our daily resurrections can be in the form of making many

acts of contrition, of atonement and reparation. That is a way of

dying to our sin in Christ, and therefore setting us to participate in

the resurrection of Christ also. This cycle of dying and rising should

be a permanent feature of our life.

            It can also take the form of that attitude of simply

having to begin and begin again in life, knowing that falls and

failures are inevitable in life in spite of our best intentions and

efforts. We should just have that holy stubbornness that would enable

us to move on despite some persistent misery that can afflict us.

            We should have the conviction that God is giving himself

completely to us. There is nothing in our life that God in his

all-powerful and merciful providence cannot make use of to attain his

divine will for us, which is to bring us back to him.

            All that we need to do is to open ourselves to God’s

abiding interventions in our life and to cooperate with his work as

best as we can. We may still have our limitations, we may still commit

errors, but if everything is done in good faith, God our Father, ever

loving and merciful to us, would know how to bring us back to him.

            We therefore have every reason to be hopeful, to be at

peace and to be cheerful. When we find ourselves sad and seemingly

lifeless, it could mean that we have no faith in God, or nor living

that faith to the full. It could mean we are not willing to die with

Christ daily so as to rise with him also daily.