The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, MARCH 31, 1921. EASTER THOUGHTS

New Zealand Tablet, 31 March 1921, Page 25

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, MARCH 31, 1921. EASTER THOUGHTS

HJ '*O P "nn i_r T. THOMAS OF AQUIN teaches us that the sufferings and infirmities of Our Lord proved beyond , doubt that He was truly fT. THOMAS He been immune from hunger the sufferings and infirmities of Our Lord proved beyond doubt that He was truly Man. Had He been immune from hunger and thirst, had He assumed a body endowed with superhuman qualities, doubts concerning the reality of the Incarnation would certainly have suggested themselves. By His sufferings and death He removed all possibility of doubt, and proved that although He was true God He was also true Man. The livid body that was taken down from the Cross and placed in the tomb was a dead body. There can be no room for scepticism there. The Jews remembered that He had promised that He would rise again ; they knew that the Scriptures had fohetold that the Messiah would conquer death and the grave and that His body would not know corruption. And, therefore, to make doubly sure, they set their guards and kept their watch lest the body, of the dead Christ should be removed in order to pretend that the prophecies were fulfilled in Him. They wanted to prove Him dead, and they did. They took precautions that placed the Resurrection that was to prove Him God as well as Man for ever beyond the sneers and cavils of the unbelievers of later ages. They guarded as they knew how; and, in spite of all they did, Christ’s Humanity triumphed over death and arose glorious and immortal. Surrexit sicut dixit: surrexit vere! He rose as He had said : He rose indeed. * The Resurrection is the foundation of our Faith; had Christ not risen our Faith was vain. Therefore,

remembering our weakness, He left nothing undone to establish beyond suspicion that glorious fact on which Christianity is based. Magdalene, anticipating the dawn in her eager love, hurries to His tomb and finds it empty. She tells Peter and John, who run to the spot and see for themselves that her story is true. She is weeping for Him ; she hears a beloved voice which says but one word: Mary! He is standing before her. She ; falls at His feet with a great cry of joy: Rabboni! Love is never deceived; it is her Lord and Master. Peter and John see Him He breaks bread with the disciples of Emmaus; He passes through the closed doors of the Cenacle and speaks to the assembled Apostles; He comes again and makes the doubting Thomas feel the wounds that the nails and the dance have made in His body ; He appears to the Apostles on the Lake He gathers five hundred round Him as He used of old when He taught among the hills of Galilee. There is no fact in all history so well authenticated as the Resurrection. Unbelief has never been able to bring a serious historical argument against it. The Son of Man who was born at Bethlehem, who worked at His foster-father’s trade in Nazareth, who went about doing good, who was put to death on the Cross on Calvary, came among the people who knew Him and proved to them that He was truly risen: surrexit sicut dixit. He had conquered death ;He had set the seal on His teaching; He had proved that He was God and Man. Henceforward we find the Apostles going forth in the open and preaching boldly Christ Crucified. There was no more weakness or fear now they were no longer the foolish, doubting, timorous men who had so often tried Him, who had deserted Him in the hour of His trial. They were transformed, and they went forth hejoicing to fulfil His command and to teach all nations in His name. They taught throughout Asia Minor, Greece, Persia, Egypt, Gaul, and Spain, and when their work was done they gladly died for the Faith and conquered death even as He had done on Calvary. * In the miracles of Christ theologians note two distinguishing characteristics Omnipotence and Beneficence. Among all the wonders He performed the Resurrection holds the, first place, and in it these two characteristics stand forth prominently : we see death overcome by Him who put Himself in the power of death; and from the miracle a river of graces flows like a torrent of living waters to quicken our souls and spring up into life unending in eternal glory. Divine Omnipotence raised from the tomb that wounded and bruised body that the guards guarded in vain; and even from the moment the grave closed upon Him Christ began to apply to the souls of men the benefits and the merits of His Passion. While the guards sat down and watched over the stone that was laid at the door of the sepulchre, He was among the holy souls that had waited and yearned in Limbo for this blessed moment that announced the end of their captivity. Joy and gladness unspeakable came upon them all when the Soul of Christ appeared amongst them, shining with the. Eternal Light of the Godhead and presaging the glory that was to be theirs now. Adam, Joseph, Moses the patriarchs and the kings and the legislators of the Old Testament — and the souls of all just, men who had watched for the rising of His star in the bygone years, raised at last their Hosanna of triumph, for they too had by His death triumphed over death. The cry of joy that resounded then awoke echoes in Hell where the damned souls heard it and knew , what they had lost, ) for over them death had triumphed in spite of His Passion, and for them there was ,no hope and no pledge of future glory in His Resurrection now. But not only for the souls in Limbo but for the souls of all His followers in all time did that , river of graces flow from His glorious Resurrection. If Christ be not risen our Faith is vain, said St. Paul. Now Christ was risen, and by His Resurrection He taught all Christians that their Faith is not vain and that they too will rise in triumph even as He arose. Surrexit Christ That message means for

us that our Faith is true, that our sins are forgiven, that our hopes are warranted, that death has lost its victory and the grave its sting, and that through Christ Our Lord we will be quickened unto eternal life. Forth from the tombs of vice and ignorance, forth from the darkness of barbarism and savagery, the Resurrection brought the world in the days when the Apostles founded the Church that shall last to the end of time. Like individuals it had its trials and sorrows, but, as for individuals, for the Church, too, the Resurrection is a pledge of triumph. In these gloomy and cheerless days that are upon us now, in the days of sorrow that may yet come, let us remember that. Let us rejoice that we are Christians and let us fear nothing from the modern Pharisees who are the successors of them that put Him to death. They cannot kill the Church ; they may kill us as they kill our friends in Ireland ; but what does death matter to us who build our hopes on the Resurrection of Christ which guarantees us victory over death and a life unending with Him in Heaven ?