March 31, 2002

Jesus of Nazareth was killed and then he killed death. This is why the Church exists. Jesus planned the Church during three years of preaching, provided the Eucharist in the Upper Room, fought Satan on the Cross, reappeared on the third day, gave the apostles power to forgive sins, spent forty days teaching, and then mysteriously entered eternity. The Holy Spirit entered the apostles and got the Church going on Pentecost.

I apologize for this crude reporting of the events, but they are breathtaking. Jesus knows our limitations, so he helps us in sensory ways. He leaves his shroud lying by the tomb. He walks with the men on the Emmaus road and shows a sense of humor about their perplexity and self-absorption. Then he takes them to a "wayside inn" (an elegant way of describing the equivalent of a modern highway rest stop) and gives them food. Always food. He knows that even his own apostles with their limited mentality would find it easier to call him a ghost than the real thing, so he eats food in front of them.

The apostles never had to "prove" that Jesus rose from the dead. They had seen him. Later, Paul will refer nonchalantly to the witnesses still alive in his audience. I do not have to prove to you that the World Trade Center was horribly destroyed in a couple of hours. I take for granted that you know that. So it is, but in a jubilant way, with the Resurrection of Christ.

In the next few weeks I hope to give some bits of information about the Resurrection. This is called catechesis, which is a Greek word for teaching. In theology facts sound more impressive when you use Greek words, just as menus are more impressive and expensive - when you use French words.

In this Easter season, stop by the church and light a candle before the Risen Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. Since the first Easter, you can meet him in the Blessed Sacrament in any church. That is a practical result of the Resurrection. I have found him there all the way from Sydney to San Francisco. In Jerusalem, I had a feeling that he was asking me why I had spent that time and money, when he was back in Manhattan. You might also want to see the "Lord of the Rings" film. Few critics mention that it is an allegory of the Resurrection. The author, J.R.R. Tolkien, was a wonderful Catholic, whose mother sacrificed much for the Faith. He used to attend Mass daily in a church where I was a priest.

Fr. George W. Rutler