Dom Prosper Gueranger:
After having glorified the Lamb of God and the Passover by which our Lord destroyed our enemies, and after having celebrated our deliverance by water and our entrance into the Promised Land, let us now fix our respectful gaze on Him whose triumph is prefigured by all these prodigies. So dazzling is the glory that now beams from this Man-God that, like the Prophet of Patmos, we will fall prostrate before Him. But He is so wonderful, too, in His love that He will encourage us to enjoy the grand vision: He will say to us, as He did to His disciples: “Fear not! I am the First, and the Last, and alive, and was dead, and behold! I am living forever and ever, and have the keys of death and of Hell” (Apocalypse i. 17, 18.) Yes, He is now Master of death, which had held Him captive. He holds in His hand the keys of Hell. These expressions of Scripture signify that He has power over death and the tomb — He has conquered them. Now the first use He makes of His victory is to make us partakers of it. Let us adore His infinite goodness and, in accordance with the wish of holy Church, let us meditate today on the effects wrought in each one of us by the mystery of the Pasch. Jesus says to His beloved disciples: “I am am alive, and was dead.” The day will come when we also will triumphantly say: “We are living, and we were dead!”
Death awaits us. It is daily advancing towards us. We cannot escape its vengeance. The wages of sin is death (Romans vi. 23). In these few words of Scripture we are taught how death is not only universal, but even necessary, for we have all sinned. This, however, does not make the law less severe. Nor can we help seeing a frightful disorder in the violent separation of soul and body which were united together by God Himself. If we would truly understand death, we must remember that God made man immortal: this will explain the instinctive dread we have of death — a dread which only one thing can conquer, and that is the spirit of sacrifice. In the death, then, of each one of us there is the handiwork of sin, and consequently a victory won by Satan: no, there would be a humiliation for our Creator Himself were it not that, by sentencing us to this punishment, He satisfied His Justice. This is man’s well-merited, but terrible, condemnation. What can he hope for? Never to die? It would be folly: the sentence is clear, and none may escape. Can he hope that this body, which is to become first a corpse and then be turned into a mere handful of dust, will one day return to life and be re-united to the soul for which it was made? But who could bring about the re-union of an immortal substance with one that was formerly united with it but has now seemingly been annihilated? And yet, man, this is to be your lot! You will rise again: that poor body of yours which is to die, be buried, forgotten and humbled, will be restored to life. Yes, it even now comes forth from the tomb in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ: our future resurrection is accomplished in His: it is today that we are made as sure of our resurrection as we are of our death. This, too, makes part of our glorious feast — our Pasch!
God did not, at the beginning, reveal this miracle of His power and goodness: all He said to Adam was: “In the sweat of your face will you eat bread, till you return to the earth, out of which you were taken, for dust you are, and to dust you will return” (Genesis iii. 19). Not a word, not an allusion, which gives the culprit the least hope with reference to that portion of himself which is thus doomed to death and the grave. It was fitting that the ungrateful pride which had led man to rebel against his Maker should be humbled. Later on, the great mystery was revealed, at least partially. Four thousand years back, a poor sufferer whose body was covered with ulcers speaks these words of hope: “I know that my Redeemer lives, and in the last day I will rise out of the earth. And I will he clothed again with my skin, and in my flesh I will see God: this my hope is laid up in my bosom” (Job xix. 25‒27). But in order that Job’s hope might be realised, this Redeemer of whom he spoke had to come down to this earth, give battle to death, feel its pang and finally conquer it. He came at the time fixed by the divine decree: He came, not indeed to prevent us from dying (for the sentence of God’s justice was absolute), but to die Himself, and so take away from death its bitterness and humiliation. Like those devoted physicians who have been known to inoculate themselves with the virus of contagion, our Jesus swallowed down death (1 Peter iii. 22), as the Apostle forcibly expresses it. But the enemy’s joy was soon at an end for the Man-God had risen, to die no more, and by His Resurrection He won that same right for us.
Henceforth, then, we must see the grave under a new aspect. The earth will receive these bodies of ours, but only to yield them back again, just as she yields back the hundredfold of the seed that was confided to her. Her great Creator will at some future day bid her restore the deposit He entrusted to her. The Archangel’s trumpet will give the signal of His command and, in the twinkling of an eye, the whole human race will rise up from the grave and proclaim the final defeat of death. For the just it will be a Pasch — a continuation of the Pasch we are now celebrating. Who could describe the joy we will experience at such a meeting! Our soul after, it may be, a separation of hundreds of years, united once more to that essential part of her being, the body! She, perhaps, has been all that time enjoying the Beatific Vision, but the whole man was not there. Our happiness was not complete because that of the body was wanting, and in the midst of the soul’s rapturous felicity, there was a trace still left of the punishment to which man was condemned when our First Parents sinned. Our merciful God would not, now that His Son has opened the gates of Heaven, defer till the general Resurrection the rewarding the souls of his elect with the Vision, and yet, these elect have not their whole glory and happiness until that Last Day comes and puts the last finish to the mystery of man’s redemption.
Jesus, our King and our Head, wills that we His members will sing with Him the song that comes from His own divine lips, and that each of us will say for all eternity: “I am living, and I was dead!” Mary, who on the third day after her death was united to her sinless body, longs to see her devoted children united with her in heaven, but wholly and entirely. Soul and body: and this will be, when the tomb has done its work of purification. The holy Angels whose ranks are waiting to be filled up by the elect among men are affectionately looking forward to that happy day when the glorified bodies of the just will spring up, like the loveliest of earth’s flowers, to beautify the land of Spirits. One of their joys consists in their gazing upon the resplendent bodies of Jesus and Mary — of Jesus, who, even as man, is their King as well as ours, and of Mary, whom they reverence as their Queen. What a feast day, then, will they not count that, whereon we, their brothers and sisters, whose souls have been long their companions in bliss, will revest the robe of flesh, sanctified and fitted for union with our radiant souls! What a canticle of fresh joy will ring through Heaven as it then receives within itself all the grandeur and beauty of creation! The Angels who were present at the Resurrection of Jesus were filled with admiration at the sight of this body which was, indeed, of a lower nature than themselves, but whose dazzling glory exceeded all the splendour of the Angelic host together — will they not gladly hail our arrival, after our resurrection? Will they not welcome us with fraternal congratulations when they see us members as we are of this same Risen Jesus, clad in the same gorgeous robe of glory as His, who is their God? The sensual man never gives a thought to the eternal glory and happiness of the body: he acknowledges the Resurrection of the Flesh as an article of faith, but it is not an object of his hope. He cares but for the present. Material, carnal pleasures being all he aspires to, he considers his body as an instrument of self-gratification which, as it lasts so short a time, must be the quicker used. There is no respect in the love he bears to his body. Hence he fears not to defile it, and after a few years of insult which he calls enjoyment, it becomes the food of worms and corruption. And yet, this sensual man accuses the Church of being an enemy to the body! The Church that so eloquently proclaims its dignity, and the glorious destiny that awaits it! He is the tyrant, and a tyrant is ever an impudent calumniator. The Church warns us of the dangers to which the body exposes the soul: she tells us of the infectious weakness that came to the flesh by original sin. She instructs us as to the means we should employ for making it serve justice, unto sanctification, (Romans vi. 19), but far from forbidding us to love the body, she reveals to us the truth which should incite us to true charity — its being destined to an endless glory and happiness. When lain on the bed of death, the Church honours it with the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, fitting it for immortality by anointing it with Holy Oil. She is present at the departure of the soul from this the companion of her combats, and from which she is to be separated till the Day of the General Judgment. She respectfully burns incense over the body when dead, for, from the hour of its Baptism, she has regarded it as something holy, and to the surviving friends of her departed one, she addresses these inspired words of consolation: “Be not sorrowful, even as others, who have no hope” (Thessalonians iv. 12).
But what is this hope? That same which comforted Job: “In my flesh, I will see my God!” Thus does our holy Faith reveal to us the future glory of our body. Thus does she encourage, by supernatural motives, the instinctive love borne by the soul for this essential portion of our being. She unites together the two dogmas — our Lord’s Pasch, and the resurrection of our body. The Apostle assures us of the close relation that exists between them, and says: “If Christ he not risen again, your faith is vain; if the dead rise not again, neither is Christ risen again” (1 Corinthians xv. 14, 17), so that the Resurrection of Jesus and our resurrection seem to be parts of one and the same truth. Hence, the sort of forgetfulness which is nowadays so common, of this important dogma of the “Resurrection of the Body,” is a sad proof of the decay of lively faith. Such people believe in a future resurrection, for the Creed is too explicit to leave room for doubt, but the hope which Job had is seldom the object of their thoughts or desires. They say that what they are anxious about, both for themselves and for those that are dear to them, is what will become of the soul after this life: they do well to look to this, but they should not forget what Religion teaches them regarding the resurrection of the body. By professing it, they not only have a fresh incentive to virtue, but they also render testimony to the Resurrection of Jesus, by which He he gained victory over death both for Himself and us. They should remember that they are in this world only to confess, by their words and actions, the truths that God has revealed. It is therefore not enough that they believe in the immortality of the soul. The Resurrection of the Body must also be believed and professed.
We find this article of our holy faith continually represented in the Catacombs. Its several symbols formed, together with the Good Shepherd, quite the favourite subject of primitive Christian art. In those early ages of the Church when to receive Baptism was an open breaking with the sensuality of previous habits of life, this consoling dogma of the Resurrection of the Body was strongly urged upon the minds of the neophytes. Any of them might be called upon to suffer martyrdom: the thought of the future glory that awaited their flesh inspired them with courage when the hour of trial came. Thus we read so very frequently in the Acts of the Martyrs, how, when in the midst of their most cruel torments they declared that what supported them was the certain hope of the Resurrection of the Body. How many Christians are there nowadays who are cowardly in the essential duties of their state of life simply because they never think of this important dogma of their faith!
The soul is more than the body, but the body is an essential portion of our being. It is our duty to treat it with great respect because of its sublime destiny. If we, at present, chastise it and keep it in a state of subjection, it is because its present state requires such treatment. We chastise it because we love it. The martyrs and all the saints, loved their body far more than does the most sensual voluptuary. They, by sacrificing it, saved it. He, by pampering it, exposes it to eternal suffering. Let us be on our guard: sensualism is akin to naturalism. Sensualism will have it that there is no happiness for the body but such as this present life can give and, with this principle, its degradation causes no remorse: naturalism is that propensity we have to judge of everything by mere natural light, whereas we cannot possibly know the glorious future for which God has created us except by faith. If the Christian, therefore, can see what the Son of God has done for our bodies by the divine Resurrection we are now celebrating, and feel neither love nor hope, he may be sure, that his faith is weak and, if he would not lose his soul, let him, henceforth, be guided by the word of God, which alone can teach him what he is now, and what he is called to be hereafter.
Epistle – Acts viii. 26‒40
In those days an Angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying “Arise, go towards the south, to the way that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza: this is desert.” And rising up, he went, and behold a man of Ethiopia, an eunuch, of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge over all her treasures, had come to Jerusalem to adore. And he was returning, sitting in his chariot, and reading Isaiah the prophet. And the Spirit said to Philip, “Go near, and join yourself to this chariot.” And Philip running there, heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and he said, “Do you think that you understand what you read?” Who said, “And how can I, unless some man shows me?” and he desired that Philip would come up and sit with him. And the place of the scripture which he was reading was this: “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb without voice before his shearer, he opened not his mouth. In humility his judgement was taken away: his generation; who will declare; for his life will be taken from the earth?” And the eunuch answering Philip said, “I beseech you, of whom does the prophet speak this: of himself, or of some other man?” Then Philip opening his mouth, and beginning at this scripture; preached to him Jesus. And as they went on their way, they came to a certain water and the eunuch said, “See here is water, what hinders me from being baptised?” And Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may,” and he answering, said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they went down into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptised him. And when they had come out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord took away Philip, and the eunuch saw him no more, and he went on his way rejoicing. But Philip was found in Azotus, and passing through, he preached the gospel to all the cities till he came to Caesarea.
Thanks be to God.
Dom Prosper Gueranger:
Dom Prosper Gueranger:
The Church, by this passage from the Acts of the Apostles, would remind her neophytes of the sublime grace of their Baptism, and under what condition they have been regenerated. God put the opportunity of salvation in their path, as He sent Philip to the eunuch. He gave them a desire to know the truth in the same manner as He inspired this servant of Queen Candace to read what was to occasion his being instructed in the faith of Christ. This pagan, had he chosen, might have received the instructions of God’s messenger with mistrust and indifference and so have resisted the grace that was offered him, but no, he opened his heart, and faith filled it. Our neophytes did the same: they were docile, and God’s word enlightened them. They went on from light to light until, at length, the Church recognised them as true disciples of the faith. Then came the Feast of the Pasch, and this Mother of souls said to herself: “Lo here is water — the water that purifies, the water that issued from Jesus’ side when opened by the Spear — what hinders them from being baptised? Having confessed that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, they were baptised as was the Ethiopian of our Epistle in the life-giving waters: like him they are about to continue the journey of life, rejoicing, for they are risen with Christ who has graciously vouchsafed to associate the joy of their new birth with that of his own triumph.
Gospel ‒
John xx. 11‒18
At that time, Mary stood outside the sepulchre weeping. Now as she was weeping, she stooped down and looked into the sepulchre and saw two Angels in white sitting, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been laid. They said to her, “Woman, why do you weep?” She said to them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him.” When she had said this, she turned herself back and saw Jesus standing, and she knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why do you weep? Who do you seek?” She, thinking it was the gardener, said to him, “Sir, if you have taken him from here, tell me where you have laid him and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turning, said to him, “Rabboni” (which is to say, “Master”). Jesus said to her, “Do not touch me, for I am not yet ascended to my Father. But go to my brethren and say to them, I ascend to my Father and to your Father, to my God and your God.” Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples, “I have seen the Lord, and these things He said to me.”
Praise be to you, O Christ.
Dom Prosper Gueranger:
Dom Prosper Gueranger:
Instead of putting before us any of the apparitions related by the Gospel as having been made to His Apostles by our Saviour after His Resurrection, the Church reads to us the one with which Magdalene was honoured. Why this apparent forgetting the very heralds and ambassadors of the New Law? The reason is obvious. By thus honouring her, whom our Lord selected as the Apostle of His Apostles, the Church would put before us, in their full truth, the circumstances of the Day of the Resurrection. It was through Magdalene and her companions that began the Apostolate of the grandest mystery of the life of our Jesus upon earth: they have every right, therefore, to be honoured today... God is all-powerful, and delights in showing Himself in that which is weakest. He is infinitely good and glorious in rewarding such as love Him. This explains how it was that our Jesus gave to Magdalene and her companions the first proofs of His Resurrection, and so promptly consoled them. They were even weaker than the Bethlehem shepherds. They were, therefore, the objects of a higher preference. The Apostles, themselves, were weaker than the weakest of the earthly powers they were to bring into submission. Hence, they too were initiated into the mystery of the triumph of Jesus. But Magdalene and her companions had loved their Master even to the Cross and in His tomb, whereas the Apostles had abandoned Him. They therefore had a better claim than the Apostles to the generosity of Jesus, and richly did He satisfy the claim. Let us attentively consider the sublime spectacle of the Church at this moment of her receiving the knowledge of that Mystery which is the basis of her faith — the Resurrection. Who, after Mary — in whom the light of faith never waned, and to whom, as the sinless Mother, was due the first manifestation — who, we ask, were the first to be illumined with that faith by which the Church lives? They were Magdalene and her companions.
For several hours this was the Little Flock on which Jesus looked with complacency: little indeed, and weak in the world’s estimation, but grand as being the noblest work of grace. Yet a short time, and the Apostles will be added to the number. Yes, the whole world will form a part of this elect group. The Church now sings these words in every country of the earth: “Tell us, Mary, what you saw on the way?” And Mary Magdalene tells the Church the Mystery: “I saw the sepulchre of Christ, and the glory of Him that rose.” Nor must we be surprised that women were the first to form, around the Son of God, the Church of Believers — the Church resplendent with the brightness of the Resurrection: it is the continuation of that Divine Plan, the commencement of which we have already respectfully studied. It was by woman that the work of God was marred in the beginning. He willed that it should be repaired by woman. On the day of the Annunciation we found the Second Eve making good by her own obedience, the disobedience of the First, and now, at Easter, God honours Magdalene and her companions in preference even to the Apostles. We repeat it: these facts show us, not so much a personal favour conferred on individuals, as the restoration of woman to her lost dignity. “The woman,” says Saint Ambrose, “was the first to taste the food of death. She is destined to be the first witness of the Resurrection. By proclaiming this Mystery, she will atone for her fault. Therefore is it, that she who, heretofore, had announced sin to man, was sent by the Lord to announce the tidings of salvation to men, and make known to them His grace.” Others of the Holy Fathers speak in the same strain. They tell us that God, in the distribution of the gifts of His grace, gives woman the first place. And in what happened at the Resurrection, they recognise, not merely an act of the supreme will of the Master, but moreover a well-deserved reward for the love Jesus met with from these humble women: a love which He did not receive from his Apostles, though He had treated them, for the last three years of his life, with every mark of intimacy and affection, and had every right to expect them to be courageous in their devotedness towards Him.
Magdalene stands as a queen amidst her holy companions. She is most dear to Jesus. She has loved Him more than all the rest of his friends did. Se has been more heart-broken at seeing him suffer. She has been more earnest in paying honour to the sacred body of her buried Master. She is well-nigh beside herself until she has found Him, and when she, at length, meets Him and finds that Jesus Himself, still living, and still full of love for Magdalene, she could die for very joy! She would show Him her delight, but Jesus checks her, saying: “Touch me not! For I am not yet ascended to my Father!” Jesus is no longer subject to the conditions of mortality. True, His human nature will be eternally united with His divine, but His Resurrection tells the faithful soul that His relations with her are no longer the same as before. During His mortal life He suffered Himself to be approached as man. There was little in his exterior to indicate His divinity. But now His eternal splendour gleams through His very body and bespeaks the Son of God. Henceforth, then, we must see Him with the heart rather than with the eye, and offer Him a respectful love, rather than one of sentiment, however tender it might be. He allowed Magdalene to touch Him so long as she was weak in her conversion, and He Himself was mortal, but now she must aspire to that highest spiritual good which is the life of the soul — Jesus, in the bosom of the Father.
In her first estate Magdalene is the type of the soul when commencing its search after Jesus. But her love needs a transformation: it is ardent, but not wise so that the Angel has to chide her: “Why, ”says he, “seek you the living among the dead? (Luke xxiv. 5). The time is come for her to ascend to something more perfect, and to seek in spirit Him who is Spirit. Jesus says to Magdalene: “I am not yet ascended to my Father,” as though He would say: “The mark of love you would show me is not what I now wish to receive from you. When I have ascended into heaven and you are there with me, the sight of my human nature will be no obstacle to your soul’s vision of my divinity: then you will embrace me!” Magdalene takes in the lesson of her dear Master: she loves Him more, because her love is spiritualised. After His Ascension she retires into the holy cave. There she lives, pondering on all the mysteries of her Jesus’ life. Her love feeds on the memory of all He had done for her, from His first word which converted her, to the favour He showed her on the morning of His Resurrection. Each day she advances in the path of perfect love. The Angels visit and console her. Her probation completed, she follows her Jesus to heaven, where she lavishes on Him the ardour of her love in an unrestrained and eternal embrace.
