“he had risen from the dead”
Today marks the most important day of the Church, Easter Sunday. The day Jesus Christ, after three days in death, rose from the dead. When we read the Gospel every Sunday, the priest or deacon says “The Good News according to …” The “Good News” that we speak of is what we celebrate today, Jesus’ Resurrection. “We bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this day he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus.” [1]
Why is Jesus’ Resurrection so important? “If Jesus had not risen, his incarnation would have been in vain, and his death would not have given life to men.” [2] As Saint Paul writes, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile” [3] If Jesus had not risen from the dead then not only would the Scriptures not have been fulfilled, but also the promises and prophecies He quoted before His death would have been a lie. “Christ’s Resurrection is the fulfillment of the promises both of the Old Testament and of Jesus himself during his earthly life. The phrase ‘in accordance with the Scriptures’ indicates that Christ’s Resurrection fulfilled these predictions.” [4]
“The Resurrection of the Lord is a central reality of the Catholic faith, and has been preached as such since the beginning of Christianity. The importance of this miracle is so great that the Apostles are, above all else, witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection. They announce that Christ is alive, and this becomes the nucleus of all their preaching. After twenty centuries this is what we announce to the world: Christ lives! The fact of the resurrection is the supreme argument for the divinity of Our Lord.” [5]
Search: Resurrection: The Power of God
What is the meaning to the Resurrection? “The glorious resurrection of the Lord is the key to interpreting his whole life, and the ground of our faith. Without this victory over death, says St Paul, all our preaching would be useless and our faith in vain. Furthermore, the guarantee of our future resurrection is secured upon the resurrection of Christ, because although we were dead through sin, God, full of mercy, moved by the infinite compassion with which he loved, gave us Christ…and He raised us with him.” [6]
What does the Resurrection show us about the Holy Trinity? “…the three divine persons act together as one, and manifest their own proper characteristics. The Father’s power ‘raised up’ Christ his Son and by doing so perfectly introduced his Son’s humanity, including his body, into the Trinity. Jesus is conclusively revealed as ‘Son of the God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his Resurrection from the dead.’ St. Paul insists on the manifestation of God’s power through the working of the Spirit who gave life to Jesus’s dead humanity and called it to the glorious state of Lordship.” [7] Jesus is one person with two natures both divine and human. Jesus, the second person of the Holy Trinity takes on our full human nature, knit inside the womb of Mary. The human Jesus was put to death on the Cross. The Holy Spirit gives life, to Jesus’s humanity and the Father introduces this “new” humanity into the Trinity. This “new” humanity is our promise, our hope. Our humanity is dead in sin, but Christ gives us His Spirit so that we can have “new” life and in our resurrection we to will be introduced into the Trinity, the eternal exchange of Love, which is heaven.
Where was Christ’s soul during the three days? “In Limbo, that is, the place where the souls of the just who died before Christ, and were yet in original sin, were awaiting their redemption.” [8] The souls of the just could not be in hell, for they were not damned. These same souls could not be in heaven yet, because Christ had not risen from the dead. Limbo comes from the Latin, limbus, which is the edge or boundary. In this case the edge or boundary of hell. Many times this is called “Limbo of the Patriarchs” or “Limbo of the Fathers”.
Then why do we say Jesus “descended into hell”? The people of God who had died in His grace had still not seen the beatific vision. This would be like hell for any soul waiting for the coming of the messiah. Another translation is Jesus descended into the dead. Regardless of the words, Jesus descended to a dark place that was not heaven to save the souls of even those that had fallen asleep in God’s grace, and were awaiting the Christ.
What about limbo of infants? Inevitably if a Catholic speaks about limbo, there are some misconceptions about what it is, specifically in regards to infants. Limbo of infants, the belief that unbaptized children or those children who die before birth do not go to heaven but rather are in limbo, is not and has never been a doctrine (teaching) of the Church. Limbo is rather a theological hypostases or discussion. The Church is very clear to distinguish between what is actual doctrine and what is a mere hypostasis, or idea. Some will say wrongly that the Church has changed it “teaching” on limbo regarding infants. This is an incorrect statement. In truth, the Church never had a “teaching” on limbo regarding infants.
Who witnessed the Resurrection? No one was an eyewitness at the actual moment when Christ rose from the dead [9], however Mary Magdalene and the women were the first to see the empty tomb. Saint Peter was the first to enter into the tomb. What religious significance is does this play? The religious significance is the women were “the first messengers of Christ’s Resurrection for the apostles themselves.” [10] This should give strength to women all over the world to be the messengers of Christ, and to let them know the Church is not anti-woman, but extremely pro-woman. For Saint Peter, it is fitting that he was the first to enter into the empty tomb first. As our first pope and first of the apostles, “Peter had been called to strengthen the faith of his brothers, and so sees the Risen One before them.” [11] “This was the newborn Church’s first act of faith in the risen Christ, evoked by the solicitude of a woman and the sign of the wrappings lying in the empty tomb.” [12]
Why didn’t they think someone stole the body of Jesus? The way the linens were laying it told of something much greater took place. “the Greek participle translated as ‘lying there’ seems to indicate that the clothes were flattened, deflated, as if they were emptied when the Body of Jesus rose and disappeared – as if it had come out of the clothes and bandages without their being unrolled, passing right through them (just as later he entered the Cenacle when the doors were shut). This would explain the clothes being ‘fallen’, ‘flat’ ‘lying’, which is how the Greek literally translates after Jesus’ Body – which had filled them – left them. One can readily understand how this would amaze a witness, how unforgettable the scene would be.” [13]
“If some one had tried to take away the body secretly, who would have troubled to strip the corpse and remove the linens so carefully?” [14]
“Christ’s Resurrection is a real, historic fact: his body and soul were re-united. But since his was a glorious Resurrection unlike Lazarus’, far beyond our capacity in this life to understand what happened, and outside the scope of sense experience, a special gift of God is required - the gift of faith – to know and accept as a certainty this fact which, while it is historical, is also supernatural.” [15]
The “individual arguments taken alone are not sufficient proof of Christ’s resurrection, but taken together, in a cumulative way, they manifest it perfectly. Particularly important in this regard are the spiritual proofs, the angelic testimony and Christ’s own post-resurrection word confirmed by miracles”. [16] One Church Father said that the most believable thing about the resurrection is that it is unbelievable. If the apostles were “lying” they could at the very least come up with a believable “lie”. The fact is that they are not lying but rather proclaiming with great joy, the unbelievable, they can say with awe and joy that they have seen the Lord with their own eyes.
Why does Jesus keep his wounds after the resurrection? “To show that He had after His Resurrection the same body which received the wounds on the cross; to manifest His exceedingly great love for us, by which He has, so to speak, engravened us on His hands and feet, and in His heart (Is. 49:16). To move us to return love to Him; to encourage us to hope and trust in Him, because His wounds are the most powerful intercessors with the Heavenly Father; to strengthen us by these wounds in our contest with the world, the flesh, and the devil; to console the oppressed, distressed, and tempted, and to prepare them a place of refuge in their afflictions and temptations; to terrify impenitent sinners to whom He will one day exhibit these wounds, showing how much He has suffered for them in which by their own fault, they have not participated. Let us strive, therefore, to live so that these wounds may be our consolation, and not our terror.” [17]
What does the Resurrection do for us? The Catechism teaches us that the Resurrection has two aspects: “By his death, Christ liberates us from sin; by his Resurrection, he opens for us the way to a new life. This new life is above all justification that reinstates us in God’s grace…It [also] brings about filial adoption so that men become Christ’s brethren, as Jesus himself called his disciples after his Resurrection: ‘Go and tell my brethren.’ We are brethren not by nature, but by the gift of grace, because that adoptive filiation gains us a real share in the life of the only Son, which was fully revealed in his Resurrection.” [18] “That our bodies will rise again from death (Rom. 8:11). For if Christ our head is alive, then we His members must also become reanimated, because a living head cannot exist without living members.” [19]
What encouragement does the Resurrection of Christ give us? It encourages us to rise spiritually with Him, and live henceforth a new life (Rom. 6:4), which we do if we not only renounce sin, but also flee from all its occasions, lay aside our bad habits, subdue our corrupt inclinations, and aim after virtue and heavenly things.” [20] “Finally, Christ’s Resurrection – and the risen Christ himself – is the principle and source of our future resurrection: ‘Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. …For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.’ The risen Christ lives in the hearts of his faithful while they await that fulfillment. In Christ, Christians ‘have tasted…the powers of the age to come’ and their lives are swept up by Christ into the heart of divine life, so that they may ‘live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.’” [21]
[1] Acts 13:32-33
[2] Fr. Gabriel, Divine Intimacy, vol. II, 153, pg. 122
[3] 1 Cor. 15:17
[4] CCC 652
[5] Fernandez, In Conversation with God, 2, 47.1
[6] Fernandez, In Conversation with God, 2, 47.1
[7] CCC 648
[8] Fr. Goffine’s, The Church’s Year, pg. 254
[9] cf. CCC 647
[10] CCC 641
[11] CCC 641
[12] Fr. Gabriel, Divine Intimacy, vol. II, 153, pg. 123
[13] The Navarre Bible, St. John 20:5-7
[14] Fr. Gabriel, Divine Intimacy, vol. II, 153, pg. 123
[15] The Navarre Bible, St. John 20:8-10
[16] St Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, III, q. 55, a. 6 ad 1
[17] Fr. Goffine’s, The Church’s Year, pg. 263
[18] CCC 654
[19] Fr. Goffine’s, The Church’s Year, pg. 255
[20] Fr. Goffine’s, The Church’s Year, pg. 256
[21] CCC 655