| The Way of the Cross is the Way that 'Crosses
Over' a Selfish Life, Now Open to True, Lasting Joy On Holy Saturday evening, 15 April, in St. Peter's Basilica, the Holy
Father celebrated the Mass of the Easter Vigil. Explaining the
significance of Christ's Resurrection, the Pope said that "this event is
not just some miracle from the past.... It is a qualitative leap in the
history of 'evolution' and of life in general towards a new future life,
towards a new world which, starting from Christ, already continuously
permeates this world of ours, transforms it and draws it to itself". The
following is a translation of the Holy Father's Homily, given in Italian.
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
"You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen, he is
not here" (Mk 16:6). With these words, God's messenger, robed in
light, spoke to the women who were looking for the body of Jesus in the
tomb.
But the Evangelist says the same thing to us on this holy night: Jesus
is not a character from the past. He lives, and he walks before us as one
who is alive; he calls us to follow him, the Living One, and in this way
to discover for ourselves too the path of life.
"He has risen, he is not here". When Jesus spoke for the first
time to the disciples about the Cross and the Resurrection, as they were
coming down from the Mount of the Transfiguration, they questioned what
"rising from the dead" meant (Mk 9:10).
At Easter we rejoice because Christ did not remain in the tomb, his
body did not see corruption; he belongs to the world of the living, not to
the world of the dead; we rejoice because he is the Alpha and also the
Omega, as we proclaim in the Rite of the Paschal Candle; he lives not only
yesterday, but today and for eternity (cf. Heb 13:8).
What does 'rising' mean?
But somehow the Resurrection is situated so far beyond our horizon, so
far outside all our experience that, returning to ourselves, we find
ourselves continuing the argument of the disciples: Of what exactly does
this "rising" consist? What does it mean for us, for the whole world and
the whole of history?
A famous German theologian once said ironically that the miracle of a
corpse returning to life — if it really happened, which he did not
actually believe — would be ultimately irrelevant precisely because it
would not concern us. In fact, if it were simply that somebody was once
brought back to life, and no more than that, in what way should this
concern us?
But the point is that Christ's Resurrection is something more,
something different.
If we may borrow the language of the theory of evolution, it is the
greatest "mutation", absolutely the most crucial leap into a totally new
dimension that there has ever been in the long history of life and its
development: a leap into a completely new order which does concern us, and
concerns the whole of history.
The discussion, which began with the disciples, would therefore include
the following questions: What happened there? What does it mean for us,
for the whole world and for me personally? Above all: what happened? Jesus
is no longer in the tomb. He is in a totally new life. But how could this
happen? What forces were in operation?
The crucial point is that this man Jesus was not alone, he was not an
"I" closed in upon itself. He was one single reality with the living God,
so closely united with him as to form one Person with him. He found
himself, so to speak, in an embrace with him who is life itself, an
embrace not just on the emotional level, but one which included and
permeated his being. His own life was not just his own, it was an
existential and essential communion with God, a "being taken up" into God,
and hence, it could not in reality be taken away from him.
Out of love, he could allow himself to be killed, but precisely by
doing so he broke the definitiveness of death, because in him the
definitiveness of life was present. He was one single reality with
indestructible life, in such a way that it burst forth anew through death.
Let us express the same thing once again from another angle. His death
was an act of love, of self-giving.
At the Last Supper he anticipated death and transformed it into
self-giving. His existential communion with God was concretely an
existential communion with God's love, and this love is the real power
against death, it is stronger than death.
The Resurrection was like an explosion of light, an explosion of love
which dissolved the hitherto indissoluble compenetration of "dying and
becoming". It ushered in a new dimension of being, anew dimension of life
in which, in a transformed way, matter too was integrated and through
which a new world emerges.
'Qualitative leap' in history
It is clear that this event is not just some miracle from the past, the
occurrence of which could be ultimately a matter of indifference to us. It
is a qualitative leap in the history of "evolution" and of life in general
towards a new future life, towards a new world which, starting from
Christ, already continuously permeates this world of ours, transforms it
and draws it to itself.
But how does this happen? How can this event effectively reach me and
draw my life upwards towards itself? The answer, perhaps surprising at
first but totally real, is: this event comes to me through faith and
Baptism.
For this reason Baptism is part of the Easter Vigil, as we see clearly
in our celebration today, when the Sacraments of Christian Initiation will
be conferred on a group of adults from various countries.
Baptism means precisely this, that with the Resurrection we are not
dealing with an event in the past, but that a qualitative leap in world
history comes to us, seizing hold of us in order to draw us on. Baptism is
something quite different from an act of ecclesial socialization, from a
slightly old-fashioned and complicated rite for receiving people into the
Church.
Baptism is also more than a simple washing, more than a kind of
purification and beautification of the soul. It is truly death and
resurrection, rebirth, transformation to a new life.
But how can we understand this?
'No longer I who live'
I think that what happens in Baptism can be more easily explained for
us if we consider the final part of the short spiritual autobiography that
St. Paul gave us in his Letter to the Galatians. This little
spiritual autobiography concludes with the words that also contain the
heart of it: "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me"
(Gal 2:20).
I live, but I am no longer I. The "I", the essential identity of man
— of this man, Paul
— has been changed. He still exists,
and he no longer exists. He has passed through a "not" and he now finds
himself continually in this "not": I, but no longer I.
With these words, Paul is not describing some mystical experience which
could perhaps have been granted him, and could be of interest to us only
from a historical point of view, if at all. No, this phrase is an
expression of what happened at Baptism.
My "I' is taken away from me and is incorporated into a new and greater
subject. This means that my "I" is back again, but now transformed, broken
up, opened through incorporation into the other, in whom it acquires its
new breadth of existence.
Paul explains the same thing to us once again from another angle when,
in Chapter Three of the Letter to the Galatians, he speaks of the
"promise" of God, saying that it was given to an individual — to one
person: and this one person, he tells us, is Christ. He alone carries
within himself the whole "promise". But what then happens with humanity,
with us? Paul answers: You have become one in Christ (cf. Gal 3:28).
Not just one thing, but one, one only, one single new subject. This
liberation of our "I" from its isolation, this lauding oneself in a new
subject means finding oneself within the vastness of God and being drawn
into a life, which has now moved out of the context of "dying and
becoming".
Easter joy: Christ lives in us
The great explosion of the Resurrection has seized us in Baptism so as
to draw us on. Thus, we are associated with a new dimension of life into
which, amid the tribulations of our day, we are already in some way
introduced. To live one's own life as a continual entry into this open
space: this is the meaning of being baptized, of being Christian.
This is the joy of the Easter Vigil. The Resurrection is not a thing of
the past, the Resurrection has reached us and seized us. We grasp hold of
it, we grasp hold of the Risen Lord, and we know that he holds us firmly
even when our hands grow weak. We grasp hold of his hand, and thus we also
hold on to one another's hands, and we become one single subject, not just
one thing.
I, but no longer I: this is the formula of Christian life rooted
in Baptism, the formula of the Resurrection within time. I, but no longer
I: if we live in this way, we transform the world. It is a formula
contrary to all ideologies of violence, it is a programme opposed to
corruption and to the desire for power and possession.
"I live and you will live also", says Jesus in St. John's Gospel
(14:19) to his disciples, that is, to us. We will live through our
existential Commotion with him, through being taken up into him who is
life itself.
Eternal life, blessed immortality, we have not by ourselves or in
ourselves, but through a relation — through existential communion with
him who is Truth and Love and is therefore eternal: God himself.
Simple indestructibility of the soul by itself could not give meaning
to eternal life, it could not make it a true life. Life comes to us from
being loved by him who is Life: it comes to us from living-with and
loving-with him. I, but no longer I: this is the way of the Cross, the way
that "crosses over a life simply closed in on the I, thereby opening up
the road towards true and lasting joy.
Thus, we can sing full of joy, together with the Church, in the words
of the Exsultet: "Sing, choirs of angels... rejoice, O earth!"
The Resurrection is a cosmic event, which includes heaven and earth and
links them together.
In the words of the Exsultet once again, we can proclaim: "Christ... who
came back from the dead and shed his peaceful light on all mankind, your
Son who lives and reigns for ever and ever". Amen!
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