This Easter, more than any other Easter, I find myself pondering this very question. Do I believe Jesus is risen from the dead? Do I believe in the Resurrection of Our Lord? Do I really believe?
Yes, I believe. Yes, I know it to be true. Yes. AND…
The “AND” is what has stayed with me. The question that has come to mind is this: If I truly believe, if I really believe that Jesus died and rose from the dead for love of me, does my life (my words, thoughts and actions) reflect this? And if it did, what would it concretely look like?
This has been a sobering personal reflection because I realize more and more the incongruency of the way I live with what I profess to believe. It’s not to say that I’m being down on myself or moving into a place of “why bother trying” or feeling depressed because of what I see and experience in myself. More than anything, it’s been a call to keep re-aligning, renewing, re-orienting my direction, my state of mind, my interior self so that it is in sync with God. To “strive” to the best of my ability and with God’s grace to live each moment of each day in a way that comes from a place of letting God’s light shine through each moment so that I allow Him to live in and through me. He brings dead places to life. There are so many dead places within each of us…areas that we don’t even know about. These are the places that He slowly brings to the surface so that the more healed and whole we become, the more His light shines clearly and brightly through us.
To be a Christian means that we believe that Jesus suffered, died and rose again from the dead to bring new life to the world and to free us from our sins. It means that we know that he came to save, not to condemn, to give life, light, true freedom. It means that in each moment, we show up ready to see ourselves and others as we are, with the eyes of compassion because we are seeing through the lens of Jesus, who sees us. He sees us. He knows us. He loves us – as we are.
We are a resurrected people. We are an alleluia people. These phrases speak of praise, of life in the midst of death, of light in the midst of darkness, of tremendous faith, conviction of mind and heart. It speaks of standing at the foot of the cross, weathering all storms in peace, receiving all things as coming from a loving, providential Father whose will we seek at all times, in all places regardless of what it is.
This Easter, let us enter into the spirit of the season with renewed fervor and conviction that the Risen Lord is Lord of our lives and that it is only through Him that we come into the fullness of who we are called to be, Christians.
Sister Mary Scholastica, O.C.D.
Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles
mage credit: “The Resurrection of Christ” (detail) by Bloch via Restored Traditions
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