XI. The Resurrection - The Triumph of Jesus

And when it began to dawn towards the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalen and the other Mar bringing sweet spices to the sepulchre that they might anoint Jesus. And behold an Angel of the Lord descended from Heaven, and rolled back the stone from the mouth of the sepulchre and was sitting on the right side. And his countenance was as lightning, and his raiment as snow. And he said: 'Fear not; ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen. He is not here. But go, tell His disciples and Peter that He goeth before you into Galilee; there you shall see Him as He told you.' - Matthew 28:1,2,3,5; Mark 16:6,7

Jesus, having been taken from the cross, is placed in a new sepulchre in which His flesh, fearfully mangled by the ordeal through which it had passed, reposed for a little while. Its rest is not the deep sleep which weighs down human beings after they breathe their last sigh, and from which only the trumpet of the angel will awaken them; it is a tranquil slumber from which the voice of God will soon arouse Him.

Two passions - hatred and fear - watch round His tomb. It is covered with a huge stone and secured by the seal of the synagogue. The soldiers are on guard to prevent any secret approach. It is confidently believed that these precautions will stifle for ever in the tomb the voice of Him who had said of His body: 'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will build it up again' (John 2:19). How ridiculous and foolish men make themselves when they attempt to run counter to the designs of God or to give the lie to His promises! On the morning of the third day there is an earthquake; an angel descends and rolls away the stone; and the flesh of Jesus, receiving life again by the divine power, springs forth, glorious and immortal, from the arms of Death.

Let us adore our risen Saviour! No longer is He a prisoner whom the soldiers of the synagogue and the praetorium drag about from one tribunal to another; no longer is He the Man forsaken by His Father and His friends, and complaining most touchingly of the rigours of divine justice; no more is He the condemned Man whom all insult who dare address Him; no longer is He the Man covered with wounds and become like a leper whose aspect is fearful to look upon; nor is He any more the dead body which His afflicted Mother enshrouded with reverent hands and saw laid in a sepulchre. Now He is free, joyous, triumphant, radiant, immortal. Let us, with the Psalmist, sing to the Lord: 'Thou hast broken my bonds, and I will offer to Thee a sacrifice of praise.' Thou hast not forgotten the Just One in His tomb, 'nor hast Thou allowed Thy Holy One to see corruption.' With Saint Paul we will cry out: 'O death! where is thy victory. O death! where is thy Sting?' (1 Corinthians 15) ' Christ rising from the dead, dieth now no more, death shall have no more dominion over Him; for in that He liveth, He liveth in God.' (Romans 6) Let us sing these canticles of joy and then turn our thoughts upon ourselves.

This great mystery includes for us a lesson, a figure, and a promise.

The ineffable joy and glory of the Resurrection have been purchased at the price of most horrible sufferings. It was inevitable. It is our Saviour Himself who tells it to those who, like the disciples of Emmaus, might be scandalized or weakened on account of His Passion: 'Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to have entered into His glory?' (Luke 24) Now, the road of soldiers must be the same as that travelled by their leader. Enlisted under the banner of Jesus Christ, we cannot hope to attain the incorruptible glory and unalloyed happiness, promised by Almighty God, through the broad pathway of pleasure and enjoyment, which is unhappily too much frequented. Jesus did not take that road. It was the rough way of sorrow and pain, in which we can easily trace His bloody footsteps, that conducted Him to eternal honours. It was the cross He bore and on which He died that opened the gates of heaven, barred and bolted against the luxury of worldlings. The motto of every Christian ought to be: 'Let me suffer, O Lord, in this life, that I may live eternally in the next.'

This is the lesson of the Resurrection.

There is in it also a symbol or figure. The mystery of the Resurrection is a lively figure of the spiritual transformation which ought to take place in each of us. Sin is death. It is the tomb in which the captive soul sleeps a fatal sleep. The enemy takes all manner of precautions to prevent its awakening. Yet he cannot prevent the voice of God from teaching even this sepulchre of the sinful soul. 'Arise,' says that voice, 'thou who sleepest; arise from the dead. Christ will enlighten thee' (Ephesians 5). At the first sound of that voice let us rise from sin. We may never hear it more. Death long continued will breed corruption.

But how shall I rise? How break the cords that tie me down? How roll away the heavy stone that is laid over me? How break the inveterate habits and the shameful laxity of the will, which is weakened so much by its many consents to sin? Courage, Christian! In the figure just given there is a promise. For us Christ died, and 'for our justification He rose again.' The divine virtue of His glorified humanity will one day bring together the scattered dust of our bodies, and will make our flesh, dissolved in death, live again eternally incorrupt; but at present He addresses Himself to the soul especially to draw it from sin to justice, and to give it strength to walk in the pathway of a blessed newness of life.'

I count on Thee, O my adorable Master! Have pity on me! I am dead, or at least I feel myself dying day by day; for it is not life to languish thus in tepidity. In virtue of Thy blessed Resurrection enable me to rise from the tomb of my failings. Create, O Lord, a new spirit within me, so that, penetrated with Thy light, disengaged from the influences of the flesh, active and alert in good works, and bent upon the perfection of my life, I may live henceforth only for Thee, as Thou livest only for God.

- text taken from Jesus in the Rosary, by Father Jacques-Marie Louis Monsabre, O.P.