Easter time and the new life

WE are now in Easter time. It would be good if we can

meditate more deeply on the significance of Easter and continue to

draw practical resolutions to guide us in our earthly life. What a

pity if Easter time would just be a feel-good moment with hardly any

tangible effect on our lives, on the way we think, speak, react,

behave, etc.

            Christ indeed has risen! That’s why we sing, Alleluia,

alleluia. As a psalm would put it: “This is the day that the Lord has

made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” (118,24)

            With his resurrection, he has conquered sin and death, and

has given us a new life in him. We are now a new creation, with the

power with Christ to conquer sin and death and everything else that is

not in keeping with our dignity as children of God.

            As St. Paul would put it, “If we died with Christ, we believe that we

will also live with Him.” (Rom 6,8) And he continued, “For we know

that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again. Death

no longer has dominion over him.” (6,9)

            And so we have every reason that we can live forever in Christ over

whom death no longer has dominion. In spite of whatever, we have every

reason to be happy and confident, as long as we are faithful to

Christ.

            We just need to realize more deeply that Christ is alive

and wants to live his life with us, because we are patterned after

him. Let us not miss this most golden opportunity.

            We therefore have to learn how to keep him alive in our

minds and hearts. We have to learn to feel in an abiding way the new

life, the new creation he has won for us through the cross.

            This can mean many things, but I guess the first thing to

do is to desire to be another Christ, convinced that Christ, who now

lives forever, is who we ought to be. We have to be “alter Christus,”

another Christ. We need to keep this desire burning in our heart, so

it can translate itself in many ways into real, concrete things as

manifested in our thoughts, words and deeds.

            This, I believe, is what St. John Paul II meant when he

said that we are an Easter people. We cannot allow ourselves to be

downed by despair, no matter what. Christ has conquered all our

problems for us and with us. We just have to make sure that we go to

him without delay.

            Let’s ask ourselves what we are doing to keep Christ alive

in us. Are we trying to know him more and more? Are we struggling to

identify ourselves with him to such an extent that his thoughts

somehow become our thoughts too, his desires, his ways would also be,

no matter how imperfect, our desires and our ways too?

            This is no pipe dream. We are already given all the means.

Again as St. Paul would put it, “He (God the Father) who did not spare

his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, along

with him, freely give us all things?” (Rom 8,32)

            We just have to try our best to conform our mind and

attitudes to this basic truth of faith and behave accordingly. Let’s

also do our part by learning how to pray and meditate, how to keep our

presence of God abiding all throughout the day, how to contemplate

Christ in everything and in everyone, etc.

            We already have a new life. We already are a new creation.

It’s now up to us to enter into that reality provided us by our faith

for which we are enabled with God’s grace!