Easter 2009
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
The glorious Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ makes all things new! Because we are baptized into His Body, the Church, we ourselves also participate in His Passion, death and entombment, and Resurrection. And so we can say that we live truly Christ’s life! This is the Good News which feeds us, sustains us, and equips us to love and praise God our Almighty Father, now and forever.
The world is often opposed to this life of Christ. Our culture and our society, despite our deep historical roots in faith in Christ, can easily fall into a rejection of His life, and of life itself. Pope John Paul II so often warned us to be vigilant against the inroads of the “culture of death.” Like the prudent virgins who keep their lamps lit in expectation of the Lord’s imminent arrival (see Mt 25:1-12), we must work hard to live in Christ’s grace and life, not falling into the world’s patterns of rejection of Him.
The world tries to attract us and commit our efforts to new things. If only we choose this new product, or that new toy, or this new idea, or that new job, everything will get better. This insistence on novelty does two things to us as followers of Christ. First, it gives us an excuse to blame things outside of ourselves for the problems of the world. If we believe that the inadequacy of other things and people causes these problems, then we will never take sufficient responsibility for them. We will never change them, because we refuse to change ourselves. Second, it distracts us. The constant succession of new things to satisfy our appetites for the necessities and luxuries of life – things which in and of themselves are not wicked or evil, though we sometimes use them wickedly – trains us to look to these things for satisfaction. When we look there first, we tend to learn not to look any further; and when we look only there, we have forgotten God.
But in contrast, our Lord’s Resurrection makes all things new. Our participation in the profoundly personal liturgies of Holy Week and the Triduum makes us look inside ourselves, rather than outside, for both joy and responsibility for wrongs. If we wish to live Christ’s life, we must first and foremost allow Him to renew us interiorly, in both mind and heart. “Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Rom 12:2). “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezek. 36:26). We have to admit that we, each individually, by our sinfulness, cause the evils of the world today. We have to admit that we think and act, believe and love, apart from the life of Christ in us. Only when we first admitted this can we change, accepting the graces Christ pours out for us with abundance each day, and growing in fidelity to His divine and perfect will for us.
To live Christ’s life is a constant struggle. The attractions of the world, the seductions of things that are not God, do not grow less, the more we live in Christ. But the joy of that struggle is the joy of Easter, of rising to new life with Christ. As God promised through His prophet Ezekiel, Christ’s life in us will make our hearts the tomb in which Christ comes back to life! Remember the utter amazement and joy, the transformation of grief and pain into love, which Mary and the Apostles felt when they ran to Christ’s tomb on Easter morning and found Him risen. That transformation Christ works also in us, if we let Him. Everything the world uses to terrify us is destroyed by the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Each day, each of us is called to live the whole faith, made real to us in our baptism. Each day, we are called to live through the whole Paschal mystery of Easter. In each day’s Holy Mass, and in each day’s suffering and joy, we are called to live in our hearts the transforming reality of Christ dying and rising. When this reality is what fills us, then we cannot fail to spread His grace around us by our joyfulness. No matter what we do in the world, people will find our faith attractive, if we joyfully live the new life in Christ. But when we don’t pay attention to the oil He has given us for our lamps, like those foolish servants in the parable, then our own mortality will keep that light of Christ from shining through us.
The Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ makes all things new. His life in His Church, in her good works and divine liturgies everywhere in the world, empowers us, the members of His Body, the Church, to be renewed in mind and heart, so that we can change the world, “until all things are under His feet” (1 Cor 15:26). In the great joy of this Easter mystery, strengthened by the exertions of our Lenten discipline and renewed by the grace of His infinite love, let us submit our minds and hearts to His rule, so that all good things may come to all people, according to His providence.
May the blessings of this Easter lead you all much deeper into the love and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ! My prayers are with all of you for a joy filled Easter Season. We have prepared for Easter joy with 40 days of penance. Let us not live that joy for the 50 days of Easter.
Your brother in Christ,
Most Reverend R. Walker Nickless
Bishop of Sioux City