Aisle CirineosOne reads the Gospels corresponding to the Masses of the first days of Easter and cannot help but think of the Apostles "what a bunch of cowards these guys were"; hidden, frightened, fearfully... These are phrases that are repeated in the passages of these days. And the most shocking thing is that Jesus Christ, being able to do so, did not change them for others to make his Church possible. Any coach of a regional team would have sent them to the bench, for being useless, and would have taken out a replacement when it was time to broaden the vision, to take the Church to the whole world and to suffer, in the flesh, for Christ.
Except for the Holy Women, who give the disciples a quite remarkable review of fortitude, even John, who had endured until the end, is now somewhat intimidated... In short, we can say that the stories of these Easter days are "the minute of glory of the cowards". And you don't know, Lord, what a relief.
It is not clear to me what each of us would have done if we had found ourselves in the shoes of the Apostles. Perhaps we would have blustered like Peter to run away from the accusation of an old gossip, or we would have been other children of thunder, judging others and "ordering" their execution by divinity, or perhaps quieter, less close, like Nicodemus, but with the courage to show our faces when everyone is hiding in the night.
Well, even so, the resurrection also goes for the cowards, or even "more" for the cowards, the realists, the "if I don't see, I don't believe", for us....
The Gospels of these days of Easter are somewhat paradoxical: why remember these miseries of our life on glorious days? The texts could have focused on the Instagram part of the story: apparitions, walks on the waters... And they do not. The stories of these days of joy, of alleluia, remind us that only God can judge the hearts, the stories, the Christian life of others; they bring to the forefront the reality that, although we believe that we are "on the team of the good", we also deny the Lord, sometimes even by arrogating to ourselves the divine power asking that "fire come down from heaven" in his name to eliminate "those who are not as good as we are".
Easter highlights the unfathomable magnitude of divine love manifested in forgiveness. God's logic is this, from beginning to end: Christ dies as an atoning victim for our sins, and this amazes us; but it is more astonishing that, even after seeing that we do not measure up, no matter how much we believe it or proclaim it, he continues to trust us, and it is our free response to this call that changes the course of history.
God who created us without us will not save us without us, in spite of our sorrows. This too is part of the great joy of Easter: the certainty that we cowards will also be resurrected.
Editor-in-Chief at Omnes. Degree in Communication, with more than 15 years of experience in Church communication. She has collaborated in media such as COPE or RNE.
