LIFE WITHOUT CHRIST
Thursday in the Octave of Easter
My dear encountered couple:
If the love of your life were suddenly taken from you, how do you suppose you would carry on? If the person you depend upon most died, do you think you could manage? Somehow, we all do. There is something in us that helps us bounce back and get on with our lives no matter what happens. But without certain people, our lives can lose the spark that makes them worth living. The Church not only depends upon Jesus Christ for its spark, it depends on his resurrection for its birth and survival. Without Easter Christianity would never have seen daylight.
Jesus may have claimed to be the Messiah, the Son of God, and that we had better live as he told us if we wish to go to heaven, and he may have been telling nothing but the truth. But if he had not risen from the dead, who would have believed him? His apostles most likely would have returned to their fishing and collecting taxes, or whatever else it is they had been doing before he came along. It was his resurrection that convinced them of who he was. And they did not believe in his resurrection without ample proof, which Jesus gave them.
Over a period of six-week Jesus supplied them with direct, physical, obvious, undeniable proof. He proved to them without a shadow of a doubt that he had risen. Thus, we have the Church, the Body of Christ, alive and well and thriving on planet Earth. It is his resurrection that did it.
Easter is full of alleluias, and for good reasons. There would be no Catholic Church, no Christianity without the Son of God made Man rising from the dead. We might think our lives are empty with-out certain people in our lives; we can’t imagine what it would be like without Christ. Thank God for the resurrection. It gives us the confidence to open our souls to the Light of all life.
