The Easter Gift of Jesus

By Cardinal Justin Rigali

We all know that through the marvelous means of technology, which we see all around us, communication has become instantaneous. News is reported “as it happens” and, very often, one moment’s major news story is quickly replaced by another. In the United States, we are also affected by the major place which the entertainment industry has in American life. One moment’s fame in that industry can fade so quickly that a term has even come into use to describe it: “a Hollywood minute.” Learning news items quickly can be beneficial but can also have detrimental effects.

The human person is capable of intense thought as a result of the gift of reason which has been placed within our nature by God. This is why we are able to make decisions and commitments to people and ideas. We are also able to engage in deep interpersonal relationships, with all the demands and consolations that go with them. Being bombarded with concepts which are momentary and fleeting can reduce our ability for deep thought, intelligent reasoning and true human relationships. As we begin to live out this Easter Season, with all its opportunities for grace and a deeper relationship with Jesus, we would do well to contemplate the difference between what is fleeting and momentary and what can be found by deeply living out a Christian life.

The Liturgy of the Church
As the Church celebrates her feasts during the liturgical year, she seeks to savor them and appreciate them ever more fully. This is why there are concepts in the liturgical year that provide for a proper preparation for a great feast and provide also for an extension of its celebration. We know that we have two great liturgical seasons, Advent and Lent, during which we take a number of weeks to prepare for the great liturgical events of our salvation: the Birth, Death and Resurrection of Jesus. The Church sometimes observes the vigils of great feasts, so that we might more intensely prepare for their imminent celebration. There are also liturgical means of extending a feast, which are called octaves. In fact, we are now in the midst of one of those octaves, the Octave of Easter. These octaves extend a liturgical celebration over the course of eight days, because the mysteries that are celebrated are too great and intense to celebrate on one day alone.

The living out of the Easter gift of Jesus
At Easter, we celebrate the Paschal Mystery of Jesus: His Passion, Death and Resurrection that brought about our salvation. “In this age of the Church, Christ now lives and acts in and with his Church, in a new way appropriate to this new age. He acts through the sacraments in what the common Tradition of the East and West calls ‘the sacramental economy;’ this is the communication of the fruits of Christ’s Paschal Mystery in the celebration of the Church’s sacramental liturgy” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1076). This reality goes beyond a liturgical celebration because it affects us as human persons at the core of our existence. The “tranquillity of order,” which is Saint Augustine’s definition of peace, has been restored to the sons and daughters of sinful Adam and Eve through the transforming work of Jesus accomplished through the Paschal Mystery. The very life of the Church is a living out of this mystery through her sacraments and the preaching of the Gospel.

Our Lenten “Pardon and Peace” program
We have just completed one of the activities of our Bicentennial celebration, in which we sought to reach out to all the faithful of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia by inviting them to experience the merciful forgiveness of Jesus in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Through my own personal experience with the “Pardon and Peace” effort and through what I have heard from my brother priests, many of our faithful took advantage of this great time of grace. It must be called to mind that because the love of Jesus for each of us is intensely personal, even if only one person had been reconciled to Him, who otherwise would not have been, during this time of Pardon and Peace, it would have been worth the effort.

While the Lenten Season is a particular time to focus on repentance, conversion and forgiveness, these concepts do not end with the Easter celebration. The great Easter gift of Jesus is the pardon and peace He brings us. The effects of the Paschal Mystery, which we are now celebrating liturgically, continue to take place in the souls of individuals through Confession, that great sacrament of mercy. Far from being excluded in the Easter Season, the merciful love of Jesus is celebrated all the more intensely as we remind ourselves that the Easter gift of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus makes that merciful love manifest in a personal way through the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

The celebration of Divine Mercy
As we know, this Sunday we celebrate the Second Sunday of Easter, also known as Divine Mercy Sunday. This is a celebration which will always be associated in a special way with the late Pope John Paul II. In the Diary of Sister Faustina, who was called to propagate this message of mercy in our time, we read these words which Sister testified that Jesus spoke to her: “From all my wounds, like from streams, mercy flows for souls, but the wound in my heart is the fountain of unfathomable mercy.” As with the well-established devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the devotion to the Divine Mercy is a means of proclaiming the eternal gift of Jesus in every time and place by means that are never completely new but which only serve to proclaim in different ways the eternal truths of our salvation. Indeed, the Church has taught very clearly that the Revelation made by God that is necessary for our salvation ended with the death of the last Apostle. It is for the Church to transmit that Revelation down through the ages with the protection of the Holy Spirit. The Church examines private revelations carefully and approves them only if they highlight a fundamental truth revealed by God. The devotion to the Divine Mercy of Jesus is an extension of the reality of the Paschal Mystery and a celebration of the pardon and peace Jesus brings us through His Passion, Death and Resurrection.

Sacramental Confession
In light of the fundamental nature of the work of our salvation carried out through the Paschal Mystery, celebrated through the Liturgy and transmitted through the sacraments, we can never limit it to one feast or liturgical celebration. The Church has given us a great season to prepare for its celebration, which we call Lent. She celebrates it with great solemnity in her Easter Liturgies and she extends its celebration through eight days by means of an octave. However, the reality of the Easter gift of Jesus is available to us at every moment but most especially in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, where the effects of this mystery take place in an individual soul. This personal, sacramental encounter with the mercy of Jesus cannot be experienced so deeply in any other way.

A seminar for priests recently took place in Rome which addressed in a special way their ministry in the confessional and the challenges it brings in our own day. The Holy Father received those participating in the course and presented some of those insights which seem to be his special gift, in that he presents profound truths in a clear and yet very practical manner. He reflected on the fact that our present age is losing the notion of sin and said: “It is necessary today to assist those who go to confession to experience that divine tenderness to repentant sinners which many Gospel episodes portray with tones of deep feeling.” In reflecting on the account of the sinful woman in the Gospel, Pope Benedict spoke of “the eloquent message that shines out from this Gospel passage: God forgives all to those who love much.” In placing the sacrament within the context of the mercy of God, he said: “When one insists solely on the accusation of sins—which must nevertheless exist and it is necessary to help the faithful understand its importance—one risks relegating to the background what is central, that is, the personal encounter with God, the Father of goodness and mercy” (Address, 7 March 2008).

As we continue to live out the Paschal Mystery of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, let us also remember to participate frequently in that great Easter gift of pardon and peace, which we experience when we make a good confession. As our Heavenly Father saw each of us in an individual way from all eternity and as He sent His Son to reconcile us with Him, He gives that reconciliation to sinful individuals through the great sacrament of pardon and peace. Continue to make use of it frequently so that you may live out the Easter celebration in your own soul not just for a season or a day or throughout an octave but whenever you wish to be refreshed by the merciful love of Jesus!

March 27, 2008