Via LucisIt is Easter, today the glory of God has been manifested in all its splendor, today faith becomes vision and hope is clothed with consolation. All the road of pain we have traveled flourishes today and Christ's affirmation comes to life: "Fear not, I have overcome the world". Today the tree of the cross blossoms.
The resurrection is the foundation of the Christian faith, for we believe in Christ alive and risen from the dead: if Christ is not risen, our preaching is empty, and our faith is also empty, says St. Paul (I Cor 15:14).
Fernando Rielo, Founder of the Id of Christ the Redeemer Institute, Ident missionariesHe explains it by commenting that "if our faith is vain, it would be in everything that is indeed good, of the many things that Christ speaks of... it would lack foundation... it would lack meaning. Vain means that it has no meaning, it would be pure emptiness" (January 20, 1991).
The resurrection is confirmation of the truth of all that Christ himself has done and taught, of the authority of his words and of his life, of the truth of his very divinity, for only God can conquer death. That is why those who insulted him at the foot of the cross said of him: "He has raised others from the dead, let him take himself down from the cross. It is not so much the fact of "raising another" as the reality of "saving oneself", "raising oneself" that is proper to God. Thus St. Paul says of Christ: "He raised himself to life". Human beings cannot save themselves; we need the salvation that comes from God.
Benedict XVI echoed this need for salvation when in his Holy Thursday homily he said: "What makes man unclean? The refusal of love, the refusal to be loved, the refusal to love. The pride that believes that he has no need of purification, that closes himself to the saving goodness of God. [...] Pride does not want to confess or acknowledge that we need purification. [The love of the Lord knows no limits, but man can set a limit to it. [Only love has that purifying power that cleanses us and raises us to the heights of God (13-4-2006).
The Risen One, who is none other than the Crucified One, heals the wounds of desolate humanity. Christ's resurrection is the victory of love over the root of evil, a victory that transcends suffering and death, opening a way into the abyss, transforming evil into good, which is a distinctive sign of God's power, Pope Francis told us on Easter Sunday last year.
This is the reality of Christ's saving presence that we celebrate today: salvation, which introduces us into the world. a new life which consists in victory over death and sin and in new participation in grace. This truth is reflected in the Pauline teaching on baptism: "We were buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too might live a new life" (Rom 6:4).
And this new life is characterized by the possibility of new relationships with GodIt is the hour of a new worship, as Jesus revealed to the Samaritan woman: "The hour is coming-we are already in it-when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth" (Jn 4:23).
"The Gospel, where the Cross of Christ dazzles gloriously, insistently invites us to joy" (Francis, Evangelii gaudium 5). The joy, the joy of a new life must be translated into a new way of looking at reality. What lesson do we draw for our lives from the Resurrection of Jesus Christ?
We are going to take up some of the keys presented to us in the Gospel accounts of the seven Easter weeks. After having traveled the "way of the cross" during these days of Holy Week, we are going to enter the "way of light" to accompany Christ also in his "way of light". Via lucis.
Via lucisA path of light culminating at Pentecost
Since the Middle Ages, popular devotion has been deeply rooted in the Stations of the CrossThe story of the Passion and Death of Christ, in which the most outstanding moments of the Passion and Death of Christ are traced: from the prayer in the garden to the burial of his body. But the story does not end at the tomb, it continues on the morning of the Resurrection and extends for fifty days full of unforgettable and transcendental events, until the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
The Via Lucis is a recent devotion. It is a devotion that is spreading and will surely take root, because it is full of content. If for Christians the events, words, gestures and deeds of Jesus Christ during the three years of his public life are crucial, how can we not take into special consideration the signs that he wanted to place, now risen, in the forty days that elapsed until his ascension and the sending of the Holy Spirit ten days later! I believe that this should be a matter of intimate prayer and contemplation for each one of us.
The path of the Stations of the CrossThe reading of the Gospel of the Passion, impregnated with deep pain and impotence, has been able to leave within us an image of failure. Allow me to introduce here a childhood story: I was a child, I don't remember how old I was, but I have a vivid memory of the reading of the Gospel of the Passion on Palm Sunday. I listened very attentively, following the narration with my imagination: the supper, the Garden of Olives, before Pilate... and I anxiously awaited the end, repeating inside me in supplication and hope: let's see if they don't kill him this year! But the story went on and finally one more year they killed him. I remember with tenderness that mixture of sadness and incomprehension before the death of Christ, not resigning myself to the fact that the story would always end like that... Today I understand that my ecstasy had remained in suspense, as if wounded, waiting for another outcome... and in those times our experience of Holy Week was so focused on the tragedy and pain of death that it almost hid the ultimate victory of Life. How much good it would have done me then to know the via lucisthe way of light!
Because, as my childish heart sensed and hoped, the story of Jesus does not end there: he triumphs over sin and death. Resurrected, he overflows his love in encounters filled with intimacy, bringing peace, restoring faith and hope to his own and, finally, giving them the strength of the Spirit to enable them to fulfill the mission he has entrusted to them.
Everything is illumined by a new light. He truly makes all things new. Let us allow ourselves to be enlightened by the presence and action of the risen Christ who now lives among us forever. Let us allow ourselves to be filled by the Holy Spirit who enlivens the soul. Let us go through these scenes of the New Testament in the form of an iconographic narrative, showing us a few glimpses of their content.
But before going into the Paschal scenes, a mention of an exceptional witness.
The first witness: his mother
Nothing prevents us from thinking that before the "public" apparitions Jesus appeared to his mother. It is not in vain that Mary, from the moment Jesus is placed in the tomb, "is the only one who keeps alive the flame of faith, preparing herself to welcome the joyful and surprising announcement of the Resurrection" (St. John Paul II, Catechesis, 3-4-1996). St. John Paul II will emphasize that "the waiting that the Mother of the Lord lives on Holy Saturday constitutes one of the highest moments of her faith: in the darkness that envelops the universe, she trusts fully in the God of life and, remembering the words of her Son, she awaits the full realization of the divine promises" (Catechesis, 21-V-1997, 1).
It is legitimate to think," continues St. John Paul II, "that the risen Jesus probably appeared to his mother first. Could not Mary's absence from the group of women who went to the tomb at dawn (cf. Mk 16:1; Mt 28:1) be an indication that she had already met Jesus? This deduction would also be confirmed by the fact that the first witnesses of the resurrection, by the will of Jesus, were the women, who remained faithful at the foot of the cross and, therefore, more firm in faith. [The Blessed Virgin, present on Calvary on Good Friday (cf. Jn 19:25) and in the Upper Room at Pentecost (cf. Acts 1:14), was probably also a privileged witness of Christ's Resurrection, thus completing her participation in all the essential moments of the Paschal Mystery. Mary, in welcoming the risen Christ, is also a sign and anticipation of humanity, which awaits its full realization through the resurrection of the dead" (Catechesis, 21-5-1997, 3-4).
Tomorrow, in the second part of this article, we will start the tour of our Via lucis.
Director of the Office for the Causes of Saints of the Spanish Bishops' Conference
Via Lucis
