The power of the Resurrection

by Archbishop Raymond L. Burke




The cry of our Lord as He was dying on the Cross expressed His abiding trust in God the Father’s mercy and love. His cry, taken from Psalm 23, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" expressed both the intensity of His suffering and, at the same time, His total abandonment in doing the will of the Father (Mark 15:34). The Roman centurion who witnessed our Lord’s cruel death on the Cross received, at that moment, the gift of faith, by which he declared: "Truly this man was the Son of God!" (Mark 15:39). The gift of faith opened the heart of the Roman centurion to recognize the divinity of our Lord in His death by the cruelest form of execution practiced at the time. 

Good Friday was not the end of our Lord and of His work, as His enemies had hoped. It was, rather, the fulfillment of all that he had taught and done. On the Cross, our Lord accomplished fully the will of the Father. Notwithstanding the seeming destruction of His life and mission, our Lord, one with the Father in the Holy Spirit, abandoned Himself totally to Father’s mercy. Immediately after His death, the immeasurable mercy of the Father poured out, from the pierced Heart of Jesus, as healing and strength for all mankind. With His Resurrection and Ascension to the right hand of the Father, the "inexhaustible ocean of the Lord’s Mercy" never ceases to flow from the glorious pierced Heart of Jesus (St. Maria Faustina Kowalska, Diary: Divine Mercy in My Soul, n.  631). 

‘By His wounds you have been healed’

St. Faustina expresses, in a striking way, the truth that the power of the Resurrection flows from the pierced Heart of Jesus. She addressed the following words to our Lord Jesus:

"At the moment of Your death on the Cross, You bestowed upon us eternal life; allowing Your most holy side to be opened, You opened an inexhaustible spring of mercy for us, giving us Your dearest possession, the Blood and Water from Your Heart. Such is the omnipotence of Your mercy. From it all grace flows to us" (Diary, n. 1747).

The power of the Resurrection, the power which saves us from sin and everlasting death, has its source in the emptying of Christ’s life in death for love of us. The story of our Lord is without end, for He is alive for us in the Church and will return in glory on the Last Day to restore us and all creation to the Father for all eternity. 

The popular idea of power is total control of one’s own life. We resent anyone, including God Himself, who tells us what to do. The ultimate goal in life is to be able to do always and only "what I want to do." Popular culture would have us believe that, if we gain enough personal security through the accumulation of wealth and the attainment of a comfortable style of life, then we will be happy. We are taught that hardship and suffering are meaningless and to be avoided, at all costs. Certain pleasures become addictions, as we seek over and over to find the power of lasting happiness in some passing reality. We fail to speak the truth, in the name of a supposed "correctness" of speech. We avoid the difficult work of knowing the truth and, therefore, do not do what is true. 

Good Friday teaches us to be counter-cultural. From the Cross, our Lord invites us to be one with Him in abandoning ourselves to Divine Mercy and, thereby, to find our lasting joy and peace. He invites us to share in the power of the Resurrection by taking up, with Him, each day the Cross. St. Peter reminds us:

"He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed" (1 Peter 2:24). 

Overcoming temptation

It is so easy to become discouraged before the challenge of living in Christ. We are tempted to discouragement by our own selfishness and by a world which cultivates a self-centered life. The forces opposing the new evangelization, our living of the Catholic faith with new enthusiasm and energy, are formidable and would be impossible to overcome, except for the Heart of Jesus, which never, not even for a moment, ceases to beat in all-merciful love of us. 

Struggling with the temptation to discouragement, St. Faustina heard these words from our Lord:

"All temptations united together ought not disturb your interior peace, not even momentarily. Sensitiveness and discouragement are the fruits of self-love. You should not become discouraged, but strive to make My love reign in place of your self-love. Have confidence, My child. Do not lose heart in coming for pardon, for I am always ready to forgive you. As often as you beg for it, you glorify My mercy" (Diary, n. 1488).

Our continued enthusiasm and energy in the daily conversion of our personal life and in the transformation of our world come from the Divine Mercy which heals and strengthens us, as often as we seek pardon and peace in prayer and the sacraments, above all the Holy Eucharist and Penance. 

Abandonment and the Holy Eucharist

Through the Holy Eucharist, our Lord Jesus unites us to Himself in the mystery of His suffering and offers us the most perfect sign of the Father’s mercy and love. At the Last Supper, our Lord anticipated the lasting fruit of His suffering and dying, giving the Apostles the gift of His glorious Body and Blood under the appearances of bread and wine. He also consecrated the Apostles and, through them, their successors, to offer the Eucharistic Sacrifice without cease in the whole world. He provided for the pouring out of His life for us in every time and place, until His return on the Last Day. 

May our celebration of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus draw us ever close to Him. May we discover ever more, especially in the Holy Eucharist, the power of His Death, the outpouring of life, which is the victory of eternal life.