Dear Friends,
As I write this, Catholics the world over are celebrating Christ's victory over death; either currently celebrating the Easter vigil mass or, thanks to the beauty of time zones, already celebrating Easter day. As a Christian, we see a very special significance on this holyday that marks the point at which Christ proved His divinity by rising from the dead. Christ, the very God we adore, died on Good Friday. God literally died. Can you even begin to think through this? We don't understand the mystery of it, so far beyond the scope of my limited human intellect is the fact that my God died for us to redeem our fallen nature. But He did. He hung on a cross and died. Yet, on the third day He rose again. Christ, fully human and fully divine, rose to life from a death he freely undertook because He loved us so very much.
So incomprehensible is the fact that He loves us to the point of death...His body sat in a tomb while the world trembled...and much to the joy of heaven and earth He rose again. Without Good Friday there would be no Easter Sunday. And without Easter Sunday, the value of Christ dying on the cross is meaningless. We cannot separate the value of either day without trivializing either aspect. So foundational to our life and faith is this mystery of the God-man's death and subsequent resurrection.
The beauty of the redemptive act of Jesus is that His self-sacrificing love applies to all. Whether we believe in His divinity and give credence to His teachings makes no difference. He died for those who do and those who do not follow His way, so great is His love. While we will never be able to love others in the infinite way that God loves us, it is essential that we follow the single commandment that Christ gave us while on earth: to truly love God and love others, even when love is not easy.
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