Time to Live the Easter Way, Today!

Easter is more than a Day; it is a way of living our lives in Jesus Christ. Darkness has been scattered by the Light which broke forth from that empty tomb. That Light is meant to infuse our daily lives with the radiance of Resurrected love.

The early Christians lived their lives in the Lord, for the sake of the world. They exhibited a holy boldness; because they internalized the faith they professed and allowed it to transform every aspect of their lives. They experienced the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. They manifested the gifts of the Holy Spirit. They allowed the fruits of the Holy Spirit to be borne in their lives. Do we? We can! We can turn our world upside down - with our words and with the witness of our lives - because the Resurrection makes all things new, beginning right now!

CHESAPEAKE, VA (Catholic Online_ -  At the Easter Vigil Mass of the Resurrection I had the privilege of presenting twelve adults for Baptism and twelve others, Christians of other Communities already baptized, for reception into the full communion of the Catholic Church.

These men and women were filled with true joy as they went into the waters of new life, were sealed with the Chrism of Holy Spirit, and received the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

It was a glorious evening. 

Among my greatest joys in ministry is this wonderful work. I am responsible for adult faith formation at my home parish. I have been with these men and women for over a year. We have prayed together, read the Word of God together and studied the ancient but ever new Catholic Christian faith.

I have helped to guide them along the way of conversion and new life in Jesus Christ.

I have watched the transformation of their whole lives. I have witnessed the Holy Spirit do in them what the Holy Spirit has done for millions for over two thousand years - make them new creations in Jesus Christ. (2 Cor. 5:17)

I know that they know - what it means to be a Christian in an age which has forgotten God.

They have heard in my instruction, teaching and preaching, my deep conviction that this is a new missionary age of the Church. They have freely chosen to stand as missionaries for this age. That gives me great hope for the future.

As a student of Church history, I know we have faced even greater challenges throughout the centuries, and I know the Truth triumphs, because the Truth is a person - Jesus Christ! He is the answer to every challenge we face and His life needs to be manifested in a Church which is on fire with the love of God. 

What happened in our parish in Southeastern Virginia is not unusual. I have heard similar reports from all over the Nation and the world. Just when some people are eager to count the Catholic Church out, she is rising up with healing in her wings, awakening like a sleeping giant, ready for the task of this moment.

With the Mass of Easter Day we began the Octave, a word which means eight days. For eight days we will feast on the readings which Holy Mother Church sets out on the table of the Ambo, the place from which the ever fresh word of God is proclaimed.

We are invited to let them enter into us and change us from within, as we listen with the ears of our heart. They do not simply recount something that happened centuries ago. They reveal Some-One who is alive right now - and moving among us - the Risen Lord Jesus Christ, the Living Word of God.

Throughout this Octave of Easter we will hear or read the marvelous post Resurrection accounts. We will follow the extraordinary changes which occurred in and through the early Christians as the power of the Resurrection made them living witnesses for the Lord and the Christian faith.

Most importantly, we can decide to let the same power of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ make us into living, contemporary witnesses to Him today. More than anything else, this age needs disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ who are empowered examples of the Christian claim. 

As we accept the invitation to come to the Altar, we receive the Risen Jesus Christ in the most Holy Eucharist, and we can become what we consume. We are to be a Eucharistic people who are broken for others - witnesses of the Resurrection, pointing the way to that empty tomb.

Our Easter celebration does not conclude eight days from now. Liturgically, we will celebrate Easter for fifty days for a good reason. Easter is not a day, it is a Way!

Alleluias will permeate our liturgical worship. But they are also meant to inform and transform our whole lives. We are called to shine as lights in an increasingly dark age. In the words attributed to the great western Church Bishop, Augustine, "we are an Easter people and alleluia is our song."

Everything is different because that Tomb is empty. We are different because we have already been raised up with Christ. (Col.3:1) The Resurrection begins to change us in this life - and then opens up to its final expression when we will be raised up, bodily, and spend eternity with the Risen One whose praises we sing.

When we cooperate with grace, we can become, right now, in the words of the Apostle Peter, partakers of the Divine nature. (2 Peter 1:4) By the power of the same Holy Spirit which raised Jesus from the dead, we can we begin to live a new lifestyle. Christianity is meant to be for us, what it has been for men and women for over two thousand years, a new way of being a human person, a new way of living in Jesus, for the sake of the world.

We are not only saved from - sin and death - but saved for - a new way of living in Christ. We truly are an Easter people, a people who can be filled with real joy, in an age drenched in sadness. That expression of St Augustine, that we are an Easter people, is more than sentiment. For an age which is increasingly engulfed in darkness, we are to become the light of the world. The Risen Jesus lives His life in, through and with us. (Matt. 5:14)

We can bring Goodness Himself to a world which was created through Him - and is now being recreated in Him. We are members of His new people, the Church, the Body of Jesus Christ. (1 Cor 12:27, Romans 12:4-5) The Risen Lord Jesus is the Head of His Church. He walks among us and continues His loving mission now, through His Body!

Because Jesus has been raised, heaven has now come to earth and earth can now come to heaven. Because Jesus has been raised, the new creation has already begun. The seed of the kingdom is manifested in the Church which is His Risen Body, the sign of the new heaven and new earth, the beginning of the Kingdom to come.

The Church is meant to be the home of the whole human race. We need to put out the welcome mat! In this Church all men and women can be set free from the Law of sin and death by the Savior whose death defeated death. At her altar we can all be nourished on His Body and Blood, healed by His Oil of Mercy, instructed by His heavenly counsel, and prepared for eternity.
 
Over these days of the Easter season, as we follow the wonderful story recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, the account of history of the early Christian community, we need to decide that it is still being written - in and through us! What happened to those early Christians can still happen - to us and through us!

The witness of the early Church revealed the power of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ at work in the lives of ordinary men and women who become extraordinary by living their lives in Him. It is meant to become our lived experience as well.

No longer afraid, those witness of the Resurrection, in the words of the Acts of the Apostles, they "Turned the world upside down with their preaching." (Acts 17:6) They became so configured to the Risen Lord that they lived and died like Him.

We really are living in a new missionary age. It is time to let the story of the Resurrection be written in our own lives. By the power of the same Holy Spirit which raised Jesus from the dead, we can live a new way of life.

The early Christians lived their lives in the Lord, for the sake of the world. They exhibited a holy boldness; because they internalized the faith they professed and allowed it to transform every aspect of their lives.

They experienced the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. They manifested the gifts of the Spirit. They allowed the fruits of the Spirit to be borne in their lives. Do we?

We can turn this age upside down - with our words and with the witness of our lives - because the Resurrection makes all things new, beginning right now!

Easter is more than one Day; it is a New Way of living our lives in Jesus Christ. Darkness has been scattered by the Light which broke forth from that empty tomb. That Light can bathe our age with the radiance of Love, through us. That love was so evident in the faces of those who received the Easter Sacraments last night.
 
It is time to live the Easter Way, Today!

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Deacon Keith A. Fournier is Founder and Chairman of Common Good Foundation and Common Good Alliance. A married Roman Catholic Deacon of the Diocese of Richmond, Virginia, he and his wife Laurine have five grown children and seven grandchildren. He is a human rights lawyer and public policy advocate who served as the first and founding Executive Director of the American Center for Law and Justice in the nineteen nineties and has long been active at the intersection of faith and culture. He serves as Special Counsel to Liberty Counsel. He is a senior contributing writer to The Stream.

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