Something remarkable
in the Gospel according to St. Matthew, its beginning and end as well:
“Emmanuel
– God with us” - 1:23
“I
am with you always, to the end of time” – 28:20
All that lies
in between is the most momentous story of the 1st century… A period
of unique traffic of two worlds, heaven and earth; a period when God Himself
had visited them in Jesus, the Nazarene… A period of turning point in human
history when in His infinite love allowed Himself to be put to death by
crucifixion, then ROSE FROM THE DEAD and overcame death, the last enemy… HOPE
has been rekindled for the human race… the belief in His Resurrection is not
something that grew up within the Church, but it is the central belief around
which the Church itself grew… the Church continues to proclaim through the
ages, “Christ, my hope, has risen…and He is present as a force of Hope through
His Church”.
Dear friends,
As we join
the chorus of the angels "Do not be afraid! ... He is not here; He is
risen [Mt 28:5-6]"; and reiterate with St. Paul, “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O
death is your sting?” [1 Cor. 15:55], and rejoice with the Psalmist, “This is
the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice in it and be glad!” [Ps. 118:24],
we meditate and joyfully sing ‘Christ My Hope’ is risen to fill our hearts with
all the riches of Hope.
An Encounter leading to
‘Faith-based Hope’:
St. Augustine
in 4th century, on an Easter Sunday had exclaimed, "‘Resurrectio Domini spes nostra’ - the Lord's resurrection is our hope.’ We relive today that event of His
Resurrection which changed the course of our lives and human history. Jesus
rose again so that we, although destined to die, should never despair with the
presumption that with death, life is completely finished. Christ is risen to
give us hope, and so life will be victorious at the end.
In the
encyclical ‘SPE SALVI – facti sumus’,
Pope Benedict XVI engages with the contemporary world, and exposes its sheer
nakedness of ‘dictatorship of relativism’ which characterizes itself to build a
Society apart from God, to place its hopes in science, and panders around materialism and acid secularism. The
signs of such dangers continue to engulf hearts of men and women of our time,
not sparing even those within the Church.
Pope Benedict
XVI in the same encyclical poignantly remarks that humanity is redeemed by love…
unconditional love. A person needs the certainty which makes him/her say,
“neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor powers, nor anything else in all creation, will be able
to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus” [Rom 8:38- 39]. Such absolute love exists, with certainty, and
only in that the humanity is “redeemed”, despite apparent difficulties in human
life. St. Paul tells, “Flesh and Blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God”
[1Cor. 15:50] and the Church writer Tertullian [3rd century] boldly adds
on, "Rest assured, flesh and blood, through
Christ you have gained your place in heaven and in the Kingdom of
God".
Pope Benedict
XVI in the same encyclical throws more light when he said that ‘For in Hope we were saved, [Rom. 8:24], should
never be understood as though ‘redemption’ [salvation] is simply given, but
rather it is offered to us in the sense that we are given hope, which is
certain, joyful and is above all ‘faith-based Hope’ in Him, possible only
through an ‘encounter’ with Him, who
rose from the dead and is alive as a
force of Hope through His Church.
To hope in
the promises of the Risen Lord and to be His disciples is not mere fascination for His moral achievement as few popular
personalities opine preposterously. Jesus is more than mere ‘moral hero’.
He is the God-man, and ‘one with the Father in His divine nature’ [Jn. 10:30]. ‘It
is an encounter with an event, a person,
which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction’ [Deus Caritas
Est, no.1]. An experience and an encounter like
Mary Magdalene, who said, ‘Christ My Hope’, is what required for us and the
world.
‘Christ, My Hope’ – An experience like Mary
Magdalene:
With the death of Jesus, the hope of all the
Apostles, the disciples and Mary Magdalene including, seemed to have been
doomed. But with His Resurrection, something extraordinary happened with
convincing proofs, viz. empty tomb and their encounter with the risen Lord,
which are attested to by all the evangelists. St.
Paul himself teaches [in 1Cor. 15] that Easter faith is the conviction on which
the entire edifice of Christianity is built, because the encounters with the
Risen Lord by the early Church filled them with Hope, and changed everything:
their understanding of themselves and their responsibilities, their understanding
of history and of life-beyond death.
The
experience of Mary Magdalene, the first to encounter the Risen Jesus, is quite significant.
She ran to the other disciples and breathlessly announced, "I have seen
the Lord!" [Jn. 20:18]. And how moving, and
what a cause for hope it is, that Jesus chose to appear first, not to Peter,
the leader of the Apostles, or to John, the beloved disciple, but to a penitent
sinner [Mark 16:9]. Jesus was the one who helped her to be reborn, who
gave her a new future, a life of goodness and freedom from evil. She, like the
other disciples, had witnessed to Jesus’ rejection by the leaders of the
people, arrested, scourged, condemned to death and crucified. But on that
Resurrection morning, her faith is born anew, more alive and strong than ever,
now invincible since it is based on a decisive experience. In this world, hope
cannot avoid confronting the harshness of evil, the wall of death and the barbs
of envy and pride, falsehood and violence. But the encounter with Jesus helps
us to experience all of God’s goodness and truth, heals us completely and
restores our true dignity. Mary Magdalene went to the tomb while it was still
dark, but the darkness did not remain, the dawn broke and God's Son had risen.
No wonder, an
ancient Easter liturgical antiphon is attributed to her as if she uttered, ‘Christ My Hope’ – which means all
human yearnings find fulfillment only in Him, and that we can hope for a life
that is good, full and eternal, for He is alive and now among us. The Apostles and Mary Magdalene were to ‘be transformed’
[Rom. 12:2] and take the Risen One to “all nations” with the knowledge that He
would be with them always, [Mt. 28:19].
“I am very happy; he’s a prophet”:
‘Habemus Papam’! Ever since those words were spoken on
March 13th from the loggia at Vatican, the media across the globe,
the internet world and the world leaders have been tiptoed and abuzz with
stories and prognostications about the new Holy Father, Pope Francis, and ‘any’
news of the Church.
Amidst several responses, both Catholic and secular as well
to such historic moment, there is ample insight to glean for oneself, and
probably to which everyone can join their voices in unison, is a natural
outburst by a wheelchair-bound beggar outside St. Peters’ square [at the corner
of Via della Conciliazione] who exclaimed, “Sono molto contento; e un profeta”
meaning, “I’m very happy; he’s a prophet”.
The name ‘Francis’ would aptly fit the joyous outcry of the beggar as a
‘Prophet’ - one who brings about hope from the Lord.
Besides, a few seminal themes Pope Francis has talked about
during these days of his nascent papacy those including the need for ‘greater
brotherhood in the world’, ‘material poverty’, ‘inter-religious dialogue’, he had
also spoken more than half a dozen times concerning the Devil/the Evil One. In his
first Mass as Pope, he addressed the Cardinals quoting Leon Bloy [a French
writer], “Whoever does not pray to God, prays to the devil’…when one does not
profess Jesus Christ, one professes the worldliness of the devil…”; on Palm
Sunday, addressing the faithful and youth, the Pope said, “We must not believe
the Evil One when he tells us: you can do nothing to counter violence,
corruption, injustice, your sins! We must never grow accustomed to evil! With
Christ we can transform ourselves and the world”. There are other references to
the Devil, to which His Holiness Pope Francis has sought the attention of the
Church and the world. This should not
baffle anyone but point everyone to certain critical reflection.
In fact, the talk of the ‘devil’ by Pope Francis, has struck many across the
spectrum of Catholic and secular thought, and it is explicitly clear that he is
not trying to score points with the contemporary world steeped in materialistic
culture. His take on ‘Spiritual poverty’ of the world, which he expounded in
his meeting with country diplomats, was on similar lines of the talk on the
devil, which disguises itself as such. In fact poverty, both ‘Spiritual and
Material’, is the central message of Christianity, which Pope Benedict XVI continually
reiterated during his pontificate.
With a dig at the ‘devil’, Pope Francis re-asserts that sin
exists in the world, there is something “out there” [an
actor, agent and, evidently, as a personal being] that deceives, and so must be
fought against to overcome one’s sins and to
overcome ‘violence, corruption, injustice’ in the world. He draws the attention
of the world to focus on the contest between God and Satan which is central to
Christian faith, and hence the role of the Church to exist as to offer HOPE…
the Hope which comes from the Risen Lord, who had conquered death and the
‘culture of death’ which Blessed John Paul II fought against, and that which
manifests itself in the materialistic culture that the world wants to adorn
itself with. Pope Francis teaches us to return to reality, which is Christian
Realism, viz. to be committed first to Christ, to ‘encounter Him’. Such encounter not only overcomes the ‘spiritual
poverty’ of our times, but leads one to reach out to those in material poverty
as well, and foster ‘greater brotherhood’ in the world.
Speaking to the young people on Palm
Sunday, Pope Francis said, “ours is a joy that comes from encounter with the
person of Jesus... you bring us the joy of faith and you tell us that we must
live the faith with a young heart... do not listen to the devil which disguises
itself as an angel! Do not let him steal our hope, the hope that Jesus alone
can give... such joy and hope, we must bring to this world, follow Jesus!”
The world stands in need of Hope of
the ‘Risen Redeemer’:
Yes,
Easter is a time when we thank God who gives us Hope not only for the Life Eternal, but for the gift
of each day we spend on earth, which is a preamble to Eternal life. Each new
day is an opportunity to live in union with God; we can cherish each day, not
as an entitlement, not as drudgery, but as a time to live with God, to love
Him, and to praise Him, as the Church prays throughout this Easter Octave, “This is the day that the Lord has made; let
us rejoice in it and be glad!” [Ps. 118:24]. Easter Joy should fill our
hearts and be percolated into all that we do. We need to imitate our father and
founder Don Bosco who lived, as ‘seeing Him who is invisible’.
Yes,
Easter is a time when we renew our Baptismal promises and repeat the words
of Martha [Jn. 11:27], “Yes, Lord, I believe…” to the question Jesus puts, “Do
you believe that I am the Resurrection and the Life?” But quite often, our
faith is skin deep and short lived like that of Martha herself, “Lord, by this
time there will be an odor, for he [Lazarus] has been dead four days” [John
11:39]. Jesus pats on our back and affirms, “Did I not tell you that if you
would believe you would see the glory of God?” [John 11:40]. Faith-based Hope
has immense riches for us, and the ‘Year of Faith’ exhorts us in this regard. But
how eager are we to grow in faith and encounter the Risen Lord?
Yes, the
world stands in need of Hope of the Risen One:
Aristotle had
said, “All human beings desire to know the truth”. In the turning point of
human history about three centuries later, God-incarnate in Jesus not only
clamed, “I am the Way, the Truth and the
Life” [Jn. 14:6], his own disciples acclaimed, ‘grace and Truth came from
Jesus Christ’ [Jn. 1:17], and ‘Himself
was the Truth’. The ‘encounter’ with Him made the Apostles ‘to go to the
entire world’ [Mk. 16:15] and offer radical witness for Him, and thus proffered
Hope of the Risen Lord to varied cultures and nations. The ‘pagan’ culture of
the Roman Empire, which is more ‘materialistic’ than our contemporary culture,
had itself changed through the martyrdom of the early leaders of the Church, Peter
and Paul. Its conversion became final when thinkers like St. Augustine found
the ‘Truth’ and felt they needed the
Church to continue to offer that sense of life and Hope of the Risen Lord for
the world.
We live in a
culture more and more characterized by falsehood and untruth, and that which
tries to hijack the Truth itself. It may be ‘the Devil or the Evil One’ as Pope
Francis calls it, or may be the ‘dictatorship of relativism’ as Pope Benedict
XVI points out, or describe it as ‘godlessness’ which continues to disguise
itself in our world.
Christ has
chosen us to be His own possession as Salesian consecrated religious, so that
continually ‘encountering’ Him in our everyday life, we may make His light
shine forth for the world, and offer it the true Hope He alone can give. Becoming
‘witnesses to the radical approach of
the Gospel’, the theme of the GC-27, is a clarion call of the Rector Major
to get back to our roots and to understand what it means to be ‘His
possession’, and what it means to become ‘bearers of His Light and Hope’.
Mother of the Risen Redeemer:
We turn to
our Blessed Mother Mary, who stands as a model because she is the one, “who
believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the
Lord" [Lk 1:45]. She is the silent witness of Easter and Mother of the
Crucified One now risen, and at the hour of pain and death she kept the flame of hope burning. She teaches us also to be,
amongst the incongruities of passing time, convinced and joyful witnesses of
the eternal message of life and love brought to the world by the Risen
Redeemer.
May the Risen
Lord bless us with the riches of Hope He offers during this season of Easter,
may He accompany us as He did with those ‘disciples on the way to Emmaus’, and
continually stir our hearts that we may live each day and every moment of each
day as ‘Easter People’, who spread that Joy and Hope for a world that
desperately stands in need of. He assures us, “I am with you always, to the end
of time”, Mt. 28:20.
Thank you
Papireddy Gade
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