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Category: Easter

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Easter

The Formation of the Gospels and Good Shepherd Sunday

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The Good Shepherd Gospel reading on the Fourth Sunday of Easter seems out of place because it takes us back in time before the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus….

The Good Shepherd Gospel reading on the Fourth Sunday of Easter seems out of place because it takes us back in time before the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. On the preceding Sundays of Easter, the focus has been on the Resurrection appearances — beautiful moments of joy, trepidation, surprise and hope. The Good Shepherd passage, however, has something important to teach us about the formation of the New Testament.

In recalling that all of the Gospels were written after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, we have to conclude that everything contained within them was written in the light of the Resurrection, that is, with the end in mind: the victory of Jesus over sin and death. The Gospels, in other words, record the life and teaching, the death and resurrection of Jesus, as told to us through the faith of the Apostles who knew him and loved him. The Apostles are telling the story of Jesus in faith and for faith — to inspire us to believe in Jesus.

Not everything that Jesus said and did was understood at the time, certainly not before the Resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. John himself tells us as much in his Gospel. For example, after the cleansing of the temple, John wrote, giving us just one example of how a word spoken by Jesus could only be understood in the light of later events: “Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews said, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years,* and you will raise it up in three days?’ But he was speaking about the temple of his body. Therefore, when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they came to believe the scripture and the word Jesus had spoken” (Jn 2: 19-22).

Another such example is when Jesus spoke about himself as the Good Shepherd: “Although Jesus used this figure of speech,* they did not realize what he was trying to tell them” (Jn 10:6). After Jesus’ death and resurrection, however, Peter and the others came to understand these words, especially where Jesus explicitly says of himself: “I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (Jn 10:11). We know this because Peter refers to Jesus as the shepherd in his first letter: “He himself bore our sins in his body upon the cross, so that, free from sin, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you had gone astray like sheep, but you have now returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls” (2:24-25).

Passages like Jesus’ description of the Good Shepherd illustrate how the evangelists often show how the Apostles were mystified by things that Jesus said and did. Certainly, the Apostles did not hide that fact in their preaching. The Gospel writers told the story of Jesus to the best of their ability, inspired by the Holy Spirit. The process of transmitting Divine Revelation in the form of the Gospels happened rapidly, over the course of about 50 years. But a key to their writing was how they came to understand Jesus’ words in light of his death and Resurrection.

How did the Gospel writers compose their Gospels? The Church teaches about three stages of the formation regarding the canonical (meaning accepted as inspired by God and read in the liturgy) Gospels in the Catechism (CCC, No. 126). The first stage simply relates to the life and teaching of Jesus. Depending on the witness of the Apostles — who were with Jesus, called by Jesus to form his intimate circle of companions and to be the foundation of his Church — who passed on what Jesus said and did. The second stage came when, after Jesus’ Ascension, once they were enlightened by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the Apostles preached boldly, not in weakness. They knew and loved Jesus, and they wanted everyone to know who he was. They wanted everyone to have access to the mystery of God’s life through faith in Jesus and through baptism. In the third stage, the Gospel writers selected both oral and written materials to prepare their texts. They organized what they heard and read in order to write most effectively to the diverse audiences of their time.

According to a long-standing tradition in the Church, some of the Gospel writers were Apostles and others were not, but they preserved and wrote down the apostolic preaching: what the Apostles learned from Jesus himself, and what they themselves saw. St. Justin Martyr, who died around 165 AD, identifies the Gospels more than once as the memoirs of the Apostles. The Gospels continue to teach us about the life and teaching of Jesus. They are God’s gift to His Church, and their apostolic origin is undeniable.

Sister Anna Marie McGuan, RSM, is director of Christian formation in the Diocese of Knoxville.

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Easter

Seeing the Risen Lord in Our Midst

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Built over the house of Caiaphas, the High Priest in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion, is the Church of Saint Peter Gallicantu, commemorating the denial of Simon Peter…

Built over the house of Caiaphas, the High Priest in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion, is the Church of Saint Peter Gallicantu, commemorating the denial of Simon Peter in the courtyard the night of Jesus’ arrest. Underneath the church is the “Pit,” the stone cell into which Jesus was thrown and held that same evening, hours before his death. To stand in that dark, cold place, to see the hole through which our Lord fell to the hard floor, to think of him lying there totally alone, facing Good Friday, moves one to tears. When I visited there, I meditated on Psalm 88, a solitary and suffering cry to God from one who feels total abandonment.

We have all been in the pit, facing our own dark nights of the soul, feeling unloved or unwanted or misunderstood, alone without any consolation from God or others. The Good News that we celebrated and proclaimed on Good Friday is the astonishing truth that the Lord went into the pit before us, tasted a profound abandonment impossible to understand, and embraced a horrifying death. He did all of this so that we would never lose hope, even in the darkest of nights.

Easter Sunday is Jesus’ victory over the forces of sin and death, the vindication of his entire mission, the triumph of love over hate, grace over evil, communion over loneliness and eternal life over the power of darkness. The resurrection of Christ does not magically erase the wounds and limitations of our frail humanity. We will still often feel misunderstood, suffer terrible heartbreaks and ultimately face death alone, but the Lord has opened a path for us; light shines at the end of the tunnel. He wants us to call on his mighty power, enjoy the intimacy of his presence through the sacraments, hear his gentle voice in the Word and discover the beauty of his face in those around us.

We will still find ourselves in the pit, but when our eyes get used to the darkness, we will see that Jesus is there with us, offering consolation, mercy and hope. The Lord beckons us to live in the vast beautiful world of his resurrection, already in the here and now of our lives as we find them to be. We don’t have to wait until we are dead to know the glory of God and taste the joy of Easter. Just as in the Gospels, the risen Lord shows up in the most unexpected places, wearing the most shocking of disguises, if we have the eyes to see.

During Lent, we have journeyed with Jesus in the wilderness for 40 days, seen his transfigured glory on Mount Tabor, pondered the deep need for conversion, traveled with the Prodigal Son back home, met the woman caught in adultery, known the Lord’s forgiveness and mercy, and welcomed Christ into the Jerusalem of our hearts. In the steady practice of prayer, fasting and almsgiving we have cleared an emptier space in our minds and hearts so that the Living Water, the Light of the World, the Resurrection and the Life can enter in and take hold of us in a deeper way.

In all of the Resurrection appearances of Jesus in the Gospels, his followers never recognize him immediately. Mary Magdalene assumes he is the gardener at the cemetery. The Apostles think Jesus is a ghost. The disciples on the road to Emmaus see him as an interesting fellow traveler. When Jesus calls Mary’s name, shows his wounds to his friends, and breaks the bread in the characteristic Eucharistic gesture, their eyes are opened to see the risen Lord come to the fullness of life! Maybe grief at the crucifixion had clouded their vision, maybe Jesus’ risen appearance was somehow different than he looked before, but one thing remains clear: When the Lord acts and speaks, they know who he is, and they rejoice.

How is the risen Lord acting and speaking in your life? When Jesus tenderly calls our name in prayer, when we see his wounds in the suffering of others, when we receive the fullness of the Eucharist, we recognize Christ, and our hearts rejoice at the wonder of his nearness and the beauty of his disguise. Through the power of the Holy Spirit and the efficacy of the Church and her Scriptures and sacraments, the presence of Christ is all around us. His resurrection is the shining totality of God’s beauty, truth and goodness. Because Jesus rose from the dead, we have the forgiveness of sins, the promise of eternal life, the presence of God in every moment and union with the Lord.

How can we not rejoice, sing praise and give thanks as we celebrate the beautiful triumph of the risen Christ? Love has vanquished hatred, grace has conquered sin, mercy has cast out evil, and life has the final word on death. May your hearts pulsate with the power and life of the Lord, crucified and risen, walking with each of us on our own road to Emmaus.

Bishop Donald J. Hying is the Bishop-elect for the Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin.

 

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Easter

The Resurrection and Scripture: Lessons from the Road to Emmaus

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On Easter morning, two disciples were traveling on the road to Emmaus. Leaving Jerusalem, they were downcast and disappointed over what had happened to Jesus. They did not understand the…

On Easter morning, two disciples were traveling on the road to Emmaus. Leaving Jerusalem, they were downcast and disappointed over what had happened to Jesus. They did not understand the stories of the women who said that they had seen him early that morning. As the disciples were walking away from the holy city, Jesus came and walked alongside them.

As in the other resurrection appearances, the disciples did not recognize Jesus. And, as in the other appearances, Jesus did not reveal himself immediately. Instead, he walked with these two disciples and engaged them in conversation. They expressed their frustration and sorrow over the events of Good Friday. One of them, named Clopas, said:

“‘Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know of the things that have taken place there in these days?’ And (Jesus) replied to them, ‘What sort of things?’ They said to him, ‘The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over to a sentence of death and crucified him. But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel’” (Lk 24:18-21).

Continuing, Clopas explained about the testimony of the women and how strange it all had been. Having only heard the women’s account, the disciples did not know what to make of the disappearance of the body. No one understood what resurrection from the dead even meant.

Jesus listened patiently, but instead of nodding in an understanding way, he turned their sorrow on its head — to their shock and our surprise — saying, “Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” (Lk 24:25-26).

Jesus explained that it was actually necessary that the Messiah would undergo the suffering of the Passion and crucifixion. He does this by walking the disciples through the Old Testament. The evangelist writes: “Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the scriptures” (Lk 24:27).

At this point, of course, there was no New Testament as we have today, so “all the scriptures” referred to here are only the writings of the Old Testament. The apostles and disciples had only the Greek and Hebrew scriptures of the Old Testament, along with their own experience of being with Jesus and watching him suffer and die. Without Jesus’ help, they could not make the connections between what happened to Jesus and the writings of Moses and the prophets.

What Jesus did on the road to Emmaus was interpret the writings of the Old Testament in terms of their relationship to his incarnation, passion, death and resurrection — all of which fulfilled the Old Testament. They were predicted, and everything that happened to Jesus was there, albeit hidden from the disciples’ understanding. Jesus opened their minds and hearts to see his life and death in the light of the Old Testament. Without the Old Testament, the life, teaching and sacrificial death of Jesus would be incomprehensible.

The Church in every age has followed Jesus’ example on the road to Emmaus, upholding the value of the inspired Hebrew and Greek writings that prepared for the coming of Jesus. The apostles passed on the fullness of God’s revelation by showing reverence to the Old Testament, while composing the writings we now call the New Testament.

The Old Testament is a part of God’s Revelation and finds its fulfillment in Jesus. Additionally, there is a principle of continuity between the Old Testament and the New Testament, such that the two must never be separated. From St. Augustine, the Church still holds this classic maxim: the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament are God’s word, all part of God’s Revelation, in which he shows forth who he is and who we are in relation to Him. Jesus taught this on the road to Emmaus, and his exposition of the Scriptures set the hearts of the disciples on fire.

Sister Anna Marie McGuan, RSM, is director of Christian formation in the Diocese of Knoxville.

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Easter

Easter Amid COVID-19

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Holy Week culminates on Easter, the celebration of Christ’s triumph: darkness gives way to the light, silence to exultant praise, and death to eternal life. The world marked by sin…

Holy Week culminates on Easter, the celebration of Christ’s triumph: darkness gives way to the light, silence to exultant praise, and death to eternal life.

The world marked by sin and death, constriction and diminishment, the defeat of which Easter represents. Sin’s nature turns sinners in on themselves, makes their vision myopic, their desire truncated, and their relationships with God and others increasingly disabled. The world of death, which is sin’s consequence, is marked above all by decay. Sin is the spiritual material withering toward nothingness.

Easter is the very opposite of all this. Easter is characterized by expansiveness and growth. The spark of one candle giving way to an ocean of flame, the birthing of baptismal waters, the marvelous uplift of the Spirit outpoured, the nourishment of bread come down from heaven is all made possible by the inability of a rock-hewn tomb to encase the author of salvation.

But what does it mean to celebrate this expansiveness of Easter in a world shrunken by quarantine? How to celebrate life surrounded by images of death? How to proclaim the growth of God’s Kingdom within the suffocating global empire of pestilence?

These are the unavoidable questions of Easter 2020. And, if we are honest, they are questions that do not come with stock answers, but we must now navigate these uncharted waters.

May I be so bold to propose a path forward? If I can, it’s only because of the pathway that Christ has already cleared for us. It is the road that runs from fear to freedom, impatient despair to hope.

The COVID-19 pandemic already has become an event of global disruption unlike anything we have seen, since, perhaps, World War II. It’s still far too early to tell the ultimate consequences of that disruption. That uncertainty quite understandably is the source of great anxiety, even dread. To not be so affected would be, in truth, inhuman.

That constricting fear at the level of the spirit is compounded by the increasing constriction of our bodies, as the requirements of social distancing become ever more restrictive. The world remade by virus is a claustrophobia inducing vice-grip of persons.

It is true that we cannot (nor should we) stage a “break-out” from the legitimate strictures put in place on our physical movement. But we can and should break free from the chains of fear and despair, because Christ has set us free, and that is the one and only source of our hope. Not only must we do so for our own sakes, and for the sake of the Church, but for the world as well. That is how we live Easter expansiveness. We share with the world the freedom and hope given to us. We share the light of Christ until it illuminates a world plunged in darkness. We breathe out the God’s Spirit on multitudes literally suffocating for lack of air. This is what it truly looks like to be an Easter people.

But we can only give to others what we have. We cannot share the freedom and the hope that Christ makes possible if we are still consumed by fear and despair — even if these are cleverly veiled under the guise of devotion.

Part of growing in Christ’s freedom is accepting that things will inevitably change. We do not know what the world will look like — or even the practice of Church life — on the far side of the pandemic. Certainly much that once was will be lost, never to be regained. Of course, contained in the moment, is the alternate possibility that things once lost may be recovered. Regardless, there is no going back to exactly how things were; there is only the possibility of going forward.

There will be those who find this difficult to accept, and that is to be expected. There are the impatient demands for the world and the Church to get back to “normal” as quickly as possible. But that is merely the voice of fear denying the truth that we have no control over what is uncontrollable. Real freedom involves a surrender: to God, and God’s future, yet to be revealed.

The medieval mystic Julian of Norwich — a woman who in her own life witnessed medical and ecclesial calamities far greater than any of us have experienced — recalling the words of Christ, once wrote: “he did not say, ‘you shall not be tormented, you shall not be troubled, you shall not be grieved,’ but he said, ‘you shall not be overcome.’” God want us to pay attention to these words, she added, “for he loves and is pleased with us, and so he wishes us to love and be pleased with him and put great trust in him,” and in the end, “all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well (Revelations of Divine Love, Penguin, 1998).”

Father Andrew Clyne writes from Maryland.

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Easter

The Resurrection and the Gospels: Apostolic Eyewitnesses

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The readings during the Easter Season, especially during the octave of Easter, the eight days from Easter Sunday to Divine Mercy Sunday, go through several apparitions of the risen and…

The readings during the Easter Season, especially during the octave of Easter, the eight days from Easter Sunday to Divine Mercy Sunday, go through several apparitions of the risen and glorified Jesus to his apostles and disciples. There are several different stories, and not all of them appear in all the Gospels. This may lead one to question their veracity: Why didn’t the Gospel writers share the same stories? Why did some talk about Jesus’ Resurrection appearances in detail, like John, and some almost not at all, like Mark? Do such discrepancies mean that the Resurrection is a falsehood?

Quite the contrary, actually. The diversity of the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection attests more strongly to their authenticity. The reasoning goes like this: if the Gospel writers were going to make up the Resurrection of Jesus or if the Apostles taught a made-up doctrine to the first Christians, they would have been united in their story. It would have been something rehearsed, perhaps even memorized, among the Apostles and evangelists. Instead, each Gospel writer offers a unique perspective. As Craig Blomberg, author of The Historical Reliability of the New Testament, writes: “ … [T]he fact that the four writers each include enough unique material to their narratives, while overall clearly narrating the same event, suggests a greater degree of literary independence … decreasing the likelihood of collusion” (B&H Academic, 2016). In other words, the Gospel writers each had a way to tell the great story of Jesus. They also had audiences they were attempting to reach, so their Resurrection reports, like the rest of their Gospels, vary in some of the details, while agreeing in the essential points.

One of those essentials is that the new humanity of the risen Jesus was different than before. The Resurrection seemed so unbelievable that Jesus himself had to convince his Apostles time and again that it was really he who was in their midst. That is why he ate with them, even cooked for them, and invited St. Thomas the Apostle to touch His wounds. Thomas’ exclamation has echoed down the ages in the Church as the quintessential act of faith in the risen Jesus: “My Lord and my God!” (Jn 20:28).

In fact, the Apostles were absolutely certain that the Jesus who appeared to them was the same Jesus who had died on Good Friday. His humanity was changed, but he was the same person. Only God could do such a thing, could create such a new reality. That is the message that the Apostles proclaimed from the very beginning when they preached. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us, “Christ’s apostles knew that they were called by God as ‘ministers of a new covenant,’ ‘servants of God,’ ‘ambassadors for Christ,’ ‘servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God’” (No. 859). Their relentless witnessing to Jesus, which was inspired by the Holy Spirit and mandated by Jesus himself, got them into trouble time and again, but they did not stop. They and their followers were arrested by the Jewish authorities and sometimes killed. If they were not executed by the Jews, then they were killed by the Roman government. Both St. Peter and St. Paul, for example, were martyred in Rome. The only apostle who did not suffer martyrdom was St. John, the beloved disciple, although he did endure torments and exile. They went to their deaths proclaiming the reality of Jesus’s resurrection from the dead and salvation for all people through him. Before they died, the Apostles ensured that the life and person of Jesus would continue to be preached and that the sacraments would be celebrated. Recall that during the resurrection appearances, Jesus conferred authority on his Apostles. In Matthew, Jesus says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…” (Mt 28:18).

In John, Jesus breathes on the disciples, imparting to them the Holy Spirit: “‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.’ And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained’” (Jn 20:21-23). As the Catechism states: “Thus the risen Christ, by giving the Holy Spirit to the apostles, entrusted to them his power of sanctifying: they became sacramental signs of Christ. By the power of the same Holy Spirit they entrusted this power to their successors” (No. 1087). The apostles made sure that their authority would not die with them. Since it came from Jesus himself, it was meant to be a part of Jesus’ Church forever.

The Holy Spirit pushed the Apostles out and into the world, to preach and teach people about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Forgiveness of sins was offered in Jesus’ name, and the Apostles had the authority to teach that and to offer that forgiveness to each and every person. They were impelled to share the Gospel, to freely give away what they had received. They passed on that apostolic mission to their successors and, in this way, empowered the Church of all times to make disciples of all nations.

Sister Anna Marie McGuan, RSM, is director of Christian formation in the Diocese of Knoxville.

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Easter

Easter Evidence: At the Heart of the Church’s Mission

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Easter Sunday is the Church’s greatest feast day — a day in which we celebrate Jesus Christ’s Resurrection from the dead. It is the “Feast of feasts” and the “Solemnity…

Easter Sunday is the Church’s greatest feast day — a day in which we celebrate Jesus Christ’s Resurrection from the dead. It is the “Feast of feasts” and the “Solemnity of solemnities.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “Beginning with the Easter Triduum as its source of light, the new age of the Resurrection fills the whole liturgical year with its brilliance” (No. 1168). Christians believe that Jesus “crushed death,” and the “mystery of the Resurrection … permeates with its powerful energy our old time, until all is subjected to him (CCC, No. 1169).

Jesus Christ truly died on Good Friday. There was no mistaken prognosis that Jesus did not really expire on the cross; there was no accidentally identifying Jesus as someone else. There was no theft of Jesus’ body from the tomb; no swallowing up of the body in an earthquake. From the beginning, Christians proclaimed not only the resurrection of Jesus, but also his very real death. His human soul separated from his human body. All of the gospels testify to this. Without that death, his appearances to the women and to his apostles on Easter morning would have been humdrum. Instead, people were terrified, overjoyed and astonished.

There are factors that confirm the Church in her faith in the resurrection of Jesus. First is the empty tomb. The apostles saw the empty tomb and heard the testimony of the women who went there on the first Easter morning: “…[T]he empty tomb was…an essential sign for all. Its discovery by the disciples was the first step toward recognizing the very fact of the Resurrection.” (CCC, No. 640).

Second, the apostles saw Jesus with their own eyes. They disbelieved at first — and who wouldn’t? — but were convinced by the fact that they could touch him, speak to him and eat with him. Jesus’ body was clearly different than it was before, and almost always the women, the apostles and the disciples do not recognize him at first. Each time, however, Jesus reveals himself to them, and they are able to make the connection that this one standing before them was the same one who died by crucifixion on Good Friday. In the encounter with the apostle Thomas, Jesus actually points to his wounds as the way for Thomas to make the connection that the man standing before him, talking and breathing, is the same man who was crucified. Jesus had to lead Thomas and the others to that understanding, because his glorified and risen body was no longer subject to the limitations of space and time. He could appear as he wished, when he wished. He could be in their presence and not reveal himself, and then allow them to recognize him in an instant. All of this has to do with his glorified, risen humanity and its new properties. “At Jesus’ Resurrection his body is filled with the power of the Holy Spirit: he shares the divine life in his glorious state, so that St. Paul can say that Christ is ‘the man of heaven’” (CCC, No. 646).

The Resurrection also brought St. Paul, who hated Christians, to believe in Christ and to be baptized in Damascus, after having encountered him on the road there. He saw him with his own eyes. He heard his voice. He spoke to him. Later, in his letter to the Galatians, Paul had to compare his authority to preach the gospel as being on par with that of the first apostles, and so he based his valid apostleship on his encounter with the risen Jesus. He himself saw the Lord Jesus risen from the dead, and from that encounter, Paul’s life was transformed, and he became God’s apostle.

It was the fact of the resurrection that compelled the apostles to preach that Jesus was and always will be the true messiah and the savior of the world. It is still the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus that compels Christians to share his life and message and to dedicate their lives to him. Without the resurrection, Paul says, Christianity is useless: “For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins” (1 Cor 15: 16-17). He continues: “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (v. 20-22).

Because of the evidence of the empty tomb and the encounters of the risen Jesus with the women, the apostles and disciples, and St. Paul, the Church has always believed and preached the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. It is the moment that definitively changed human history forever. Jesus’ rising from the dead was the catalyst for all evangelization, meaning the fact of Jesus’ resurrection impelled the apostles to go and tell people what had happened. That is still what the Church proclaims today, and she always will.

Sister Anna Marie McGuan, RSM, is director of Christian formation in the Diocese of Knoxville.

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