Msgr. Peter J. Vaghi
Title of Series: "What Catholics Believe: The Faith Professed"

Part 6: "Even in Lent, We Are Risen Christians"

March 1st, 2007
First Thursday

Today's meditation on this First Thursday of March Lent 2007 covers articles five, six and seven of the Apostles' Creed -- "He descended into Hell. On the third day He rose again. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. From thence He will come again to judge the living and the dead."

There are three articles but four parts in this meditation.

They are the last articles of the creed that speak of Jesus. They speak of events that occurred immediately after His death. Taken together, they lie at the very heart of our Christian faith -- the very basis of our hope as Christians.

I have entitled this March Lenten meditation: “Even in Lent, We Are Risen Christians.”

The inspiration came from a homily by the well-known and respected Jesuit Walter Burghardt where he wrote, speaking of Lent, “It is a journey that mingles gladness and sadness, satisfaction and frustration, high hopes and sometimes near despair. On the other hand, you walk that dusty journey with Jesus, and you walk it as risen Christians. You don’t wait for Easter to rise with Christ; you don’t wait for your very last death. You have risen! From the moment that water flowed over your forehead in the shape of a cross, the life of the risen Christ has been thrilling through your dust like another bloodstream.” Grace on Crutches, p.30

But on this first March First Thursday of Lent 2007, these three articles of the creed seemingly come at the wrong time liturgically for us. In effect, it is as if the final chapter of the Lenten/Easter dramatic tragedy is revealed to us at the very beginning instead of at the end. We know the outcome already. Not only does Jesus, the central figure, die an ignominious death but we find out today that He miraculously rises from the dead three days later.

This admitted poor planning on my part does have a significant theological advantage, however. It helps us to see a most profound and often ignored dimension of our faith -- that even during Lent we are risen Christians. Lent is not simply a time of remembering a past historical event. That historical event effects us significantly even now.

“When we speak of the Paschal Mystery, we refer to Christ’s death and Resurrection as one inseparable event.” USCCA 93 By virtue of our baptisms, we share at this very moment in His new risen life.

The four parts of today's meditation may thus not be scheduled correctly liturgically but, properly understood, they give us a correct perspective to approach Lent. What a wonderful perspective to approach Lent -- as risen Christians! We are already living our second life, a life won for us out of love by Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

Part l: He Descended Into Hell

"By the expression, 'He descended into hell,' the Apostles' Creed confesses that Jesus did really die and through his death for us conquered death and the devil 'who has the power of death" (Heb 2:14) CCC 636 If we need the reminder, this article of the creed helps us see that Jesus truly died. His human story came to a dead stop. With Jesus' death, there is a solidarity with all men and women of all places and time in the past and in the future -- a radical solidarity with us even in our deaths. No matter how antiseptic, streamlined, packaged and expensive modern death has become, not one of us can put off death forever. Nor did Jesus.

In their book on the Creed (which I have often cited) O'Collins and Venturini write these hope-filled words: "But in front of death we are faced with the great unknown, armed not with experience or reason but with the belief based on trust that Jesus Christ has gone before us not only through life but also through death." (p. 100) In fact, it is precisely through His death that Jesus brings salvation. By truly dying, Jesus changed the nature of death forever. He raised suffering and death to the level of our redemption.

Eastern icons help us see this truth of our faith in an artistic way. His death had significance for all humanity. Jesus' descent among the dead signals His liberation from the dead of those who have gone before. He opened the gates of heaven for the just who have gone before Him. In those representations, we often see Jesus delivering Adam and Eve, John the Baptist, Constantine and others. "Christ went down into the depths of death so that 'the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.'" CCC 635 The catechism quotes a beautiful passage from an Ancient Homily from Holy Saturday that sums up the meaning of this section on the creed:

“Today a great silence reigns on earth, a great silence and a great stillness. A great silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began...He has gone to search for Adam, our first father, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow Adam in his bonds and Eve, captive with him -- He who is both their God and the son of Eve...‘I am your God, who for your sake have become your son...I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead.’” CCC 635

Part 2: On The Third Day He Rose From the Dead

In his own profound way, Fr. O'Collins writes in his book on the Creed: "Both then and now Christian faith stands or falls with the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. It was this unique piece of good news which got Christianity going and keeps it going" (p. 103) The catechism calls it the "crowning truth of our faith in Christ." CCC 638 It is a truth believed and lived by the first Christians. Many of them even died as martyrs rather than deny what they had witnessed. USCCA 95 It is a truth handed down in the Tradition. It is a truth set forth in Scripture and later preached as an essential part of the Paschal Mystery. It has consequences even now for each baptized Christian. In short, our belief in Jesus' resurrection is the basis for hope in our own. "If I go and prepare a place for you, I shall come again and take you to myself, so that where I am, you also may be." (Jn 14:3)

The catechism treats the resurrection as an "historical" and "transcendent" event. The first Christians were distinguished by their conviction that history now contained an incredible event. How did they know that the Jesus who walked with them along the dusty roads of Palestine had now been raised up? The first sign was the empty tomb. It is the Gospel text we read every Easter Sunday. It had significance for their Easter faith and it does for us too.

Standing alone, even the empty tomb, however, is not proof-positive of the Resurrection. After all, there were no eyewitnesses to His actual rising from the dead. The empty tomb is an important sign. It is a powerful sign. It signifies, as signs typically do, and it does give meaning to the reality of the Resurrection. But that meaning is supported, fleshed out, by the important post-Resurrection appearances of the Risen Lord -- that He was seen "not by all, but only by such witnesses as had been chosen beforehand by God -- by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead." These are the texts we hear during Easter Week each year at Mass.

Between Good Friday, when His disciples abandoned Him, and Easter Sunday, when they became His witnesses, something had to have happened. Yes, there was an incredible encounter that changed their lives. And it was an initiative that came not from the disciples but from Him who was and is alive.

At the same time, the Gospel image of the "empty tomb" can, however, support stimulate and even deepen our Easter faith. What does it mean for us and for the Risen One?

On Easter Sunday, the focus of the entire Christian world is an empty tomb. We listen and observe in St. John’s Gospel for Easter Sunday that Peter and John ran in marathon to the empty tomb only to find it empty.

Yes, an empty tomb! A powerful and important sign of hope and joy!

Three points:

First, through the eyes of faith, you and I -- as believers -- know instinctively that what was not found there is alive within each of us. I speak of a person, a person with a face and voice. I speak of the Risen Lord. That is our faith. In the great sacrament of Baptism, each of us became changed persons, after all, as Jesus Himself was transformed in the power of the Resurrection. It is the Risen Lord who lives within each of us. St. Paul says: “I have been crucified with Christ, and the life I have now is not my own; Christ is living in me.” Gal. 2:20

The very emptiness of the tomb suggests and symbolizes the fullness of the new and everlasting life into which Jesus himself has gone. Graves naturally symbolize death and the end of life. The open and empty tomb of Jesus expresses the reversal of death and the start of a new life that will never end, the life of the Risen One within each of us. When we look at ourselves in the mirror, we should be able to see the Risen face of Jesus.

Second, the empty tomb is God's radical sign that redemption is not an escape from the suffering and death of this world to a better world. Instead, the empty tomb is an affirmation by God of this very world -- your world and mine, a world in which we live and breathe and have our being. God did not discard Jesus' earthly corpse, but mysteriously raised and transfigured it. Unlike Lazarus, Christ's Resurrection was not merely a return to earthly life. Christ's resurrection is essentially different. The scriptures attest further to the way the Risen Lord had been changed and transformed. Closed doors are no obstacle to Him. He appears and disappears at will. People who had known Him during His earthly existence failed, at least initially, to recognize Him as the Jesus they knew.

The scriptures attest further to the way the Risen Lord had been changed and transformed. This is the stuff of the appearance accounts that form the gospel readings for Easter week each year.

In the empty tomb, we see even now a transformation of our own material and bodily world. We see it very specifically in our lives when our sins are forgiven and we are made new. In the days before Ash Wednesday this year, Pope Benedict, speaking of confession, that citadel of God’s mercy, said: “How many penitents find in confession the peace and joy they were seeking for so long!” Yes a newness and transformation takes place within us with the words of forgiveness. During these Wednesdays of Lent throughout our Archdiocese, we pray that large numbers of penitents will experience transformation in their own concrete lives through the healing sacrament of Penance. We see the effect of this transformation when we experience with fresh eyes the liberating power of our lived Catholic faith. In effect, when a person comes from the cleansing sacrament of penance, one can see the face of the Risen Christ. Through the mystery of grace, He can and does change our present lives -- even radically.

Third and finally, we often worry who will roll back that large stone from the tombs of our lives as that stone was discovered to be rolled back on that first Easter Sunday. So many things in life seem impossible -- our sufferings with which we struggle to cope, the heavy burden of sin which is at times ours, which makes it impossible to see clearly, injustices we simply cannot forgive or endure. But God continues to do the impossible. He rolls away the enormous stones from our lives as He rolled away the very large stone from the tomb on that first day of the week. He continues to let in light and risen life into our concrete human circumstances. Every time we experience the living presence of the Lord, especially when we receive the Risen Lord in the Eucharist, it is as if a hugh stone were rolled back and away from each of us. It is then and there that we see the face of the Risen Lord. We see then with Easter glasses and we know for sure that the living Lord Jesus lives.

Moving on, the catechism teaches --

As with all central aspects of our faith, the resurrection is mysteriously the work of the entire Trinity.

The Father's power raised Christ His Son. St. Paul emphasizes the manifestation of God's power by the working of the Holy Spirit. "Yet the Son brings about his own resurrection by virtue of his divine power. Jesus announces that the Son of Man will have to suffer many things, die and then rise...Elsewhere he affirms explicitly: 'I lay down my life in order to take it up again...I have power to lay it down and power to take it up again.' Jn:10:17-18." CCC 649

Another point: "the resurrection," in the words of the catechism, "above all constitutes the confirmation of all Christ's works and teachings." CCC 651 It has great implications for us. It is the basis of our hope. It pushes us beyond the threshold of hope. "If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain." l Cor 15:14. The Paschal mystery has two aspects that we must never forget: first, by His death, Christ liberates us from sin and secondly, by His resurrection, He opens for us the way to a new life. The Risen Christ lives in our hearts. In Christ, we have already tasted the powers of the age to come. What a wonderful perspective to approach Lent, this season when we intensively prepare ourselves to celebrate the Easter mystery -- the very foundation of our faith.

Part 3: He Ascended Into Heaven And Is Seated At The Right Hand Of The Father

Someone described the Ascension of our Lord as the grand amen to a Bach Cantata -- its summation or capstone. It is certainly overshadowed by the crucifixion and resurrection on the one side and Pentecost on the other. It seems almost unimportant. It takes up only a few lines in the Gospel of Luke followed by that flowery description in the Acts. It has none of the tragedy of a final farewell, none of the agony and uncertainly of the last supper.

And yet how essential to our faith it is. It is the irreversible entry of His humanity into divine glory symbolized by the cloud and by heaven where He is seated from that time forward at the place of honor, the right hand of the Father. Only the One who "came from the Father" can return to the Father. "Jesus Christ, the head of the Church, precedes us into the Father's glorious kingdom so that we, the members of Body, may live in the hope of one day being with Him forever." CCC666

Having entered the sanctuary of heaven once and for all, Jesus Christ -- seated at the right hand of the Father -- intercedes for us constantly. The Messiah's kingdom is inaugurated. He is the unique mediator between us and God, exalted, in His glorified humanity, He assures us of the permanent outpouring of the Holy Spirit. What confidence this mystery of our faith, this sixth article of the creed, should inspire!

Part 4: From Thence He will Come Again To Judge The Living And The Dead

Taken up to heaven and glorified 40 days after His resurrection, Christ has not left us alone. He dwells now on earth in and through His Church by virtue of the power of the Holy Spirit. We are not left orphans as He promised us. The renewal of the world -- our world -- is irrevocably under way. The Church is endowed with a sanctity that is real albeit imperfect. One does not have to look too far to understand this reality. The supreme religious deception can be found in a world that is completely secular, where there is no room for God, a world that tries to create a utopia without God here on earth. All things of this world are not yet subject to Him. The triumph of Christ's kingdom will not come about without one last assault by the powers of evil. That is why we pray, especially in the Eucharist, to hasten Christ's return -- Marana tha -- "Our Lord, come!"

"According to the Lord, the present time is the time of the Spirit and of witness, but also a time still marked by 'distress' and the trial of evil which does not spare the Church and ushers in the struggles of the last days. It is a time of waiting and watching." CCC 672 The catechism continues: "Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers." CCC 675 We need not fear, however. The Lord is still with us. "God's triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgment after the cosmic upheavel of this passing world." CCC 677

It is impossible to speak of the Last Judgment, when Christ will come in glory to judge the living and the dead, when Christ will achieve the definitive triumph of good over evil, without conjuring up the magnificent image of Michelangelo's fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. It is a powerful, terrifying Christ dominating the world while the dead rise to be rewarded or punished according to their deeds.

Or the account in Mt 25: 31-46, where the Son of Man comes in glory and all the nations will be assembled before Him. He will separate the sheep from the goats -- the sheep on His right and the goats on His left. To those on His right, He invites them to inherit the Kingdom prepared for them. "For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me." A very practical standard: if you loved the least amongst us, you loved Jesus and have a claim on life everlasting. In contrast, there are those on His left. He says: "Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me." For "truly I say to you, as you did to one of these least my brethren, you did it to me."

"When he comes at the end of time to judge the living and the dead, the glorious Christ will reveal the secret disposition of hearts and will render to each man according to his works and according to his acceptance or refusal of grace." CCC 682 Christ, after all, is truth and goodness personified. His second coming will unmask our greedy dishonesty and selfish malice. He will appear before the whole human race. Presently, He reveals Himself to us in signs and sacraments. Then, He will confront all people directly and immediately. Our human solidarity will be revealed at the second coming. The day of individualism, tribalism and nationalism will finally be over. Another dimension of the second coming--the radical and lasting importance of our human freedom is highlighted. For good or evil, our free decisions have eternal consequences.

Although the second coming does not seem real or immediate or threatening to most of us, or even of overwhelming significance in our lives, we simply cannot ignore -- or if we do, we do it at our own risk --this article of our faith, the biblical evidence in support thereof -- that Jesus will come in glory to judge the living and the dead.

In his book on the Creed, Fr. O'Collins spoke of a relative of his. He wrote that she wants to have "Amazing Grace" sung at her funeral. O’Collins writes that "Her instinct is profoundly right." For "what will ultimately matter at the end will not be our good deeds or bad deeds, but the love of God shining through the compassionate face of Christ. His mercy, rather than our freedom, will have the final world." (p. 124)

With added hope, then, pray with me: "Come, Lord Jesus."

AMEN