The
Resurrection, the heart of the Christian message, and the two ways it is
announced—profession of faith and narration—were the themes with which His
Holiness Pope Francis returned to the catechesis for the Year of Faith in the 3
April 2013 general audience. Our Holy
Father began his catechesis with the quote of the celebrated passage of St.
Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians: “if Christ has not been raised, your
faith is vain”.
“Unfortunately,”
he said, “there have often been attempts to obscure the faith in Jesus'
Resurrection and doubts have crept in even among believers themselves. Our
faith is 'watered down', we might say; not strong faith. Sometimes this has
been because of superficiality, sometimes because of indifference, because we
are busy with thousands of other things that seem more important than our
faith, or even because we have a limited view of life. But it is precisely the Resurrection
that offers us the greatest hope because it opens our lives and the life of the
world to God's eternal future, to complete happiness, to the certainty that
evil, sin, and death can be conquered. This leads us to living our everyday
lives more confidently, to facing them courageously and committedly. Christ's
Resurrection shines new light on our everyday realities. Christ's Resurrection
is our strength!”
Moving
on to explain the two ways that the truth of the Resurrection is shared in the
New Testament, Francis spoke first of professions of faith, that is, of the
concise formulas expressing the core of the faith. Such examples can be found
in the Letter to the Corinthians or the Letter to the Romans in which St. Paul
writes: “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your
heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom 10:9). From
the Church's first steps, her faith in the Mystery of Jesus' Death and
Resurrection has been steadfast and clear.”
However,
the Pope preferred to emphasize the witness that takes the form of a story,
recalling above all that, in these types of testimonials, women are the first
witnesses. They are the ones who, at dawn, go to the tomb to anoint Jesus' body
and find the first sign: the empty tomb. They then encounter the divine
messenger who tells them: Jesus of Nazareth, the Crucified One, is not here. He
is risen.
“The
women,” he attested, “are compelled by love and know how to welcome this
announcement with faith. They believe and immediately they share [the
announcement]. They don't keep it for themselves but convey it. They can't
contain the joy of knowing that Jesus is alive, the hope that fills their
hearts. This should also happen in our lives. We should feel the joy of being
Christians! We believe in the Risen One who has conquered evil and death! We
must have the courage to 'go out' to bring this joy and this light to all the
areas of our lives. Christ's Resurrection is our greatest certainty. It is our
most precious treasure! How can we not share this treasure, this certainty,
with others? It is not just for us: it is to be proclaimed; to be given to
others; to be shared with others. This is precisely our witness.”
Francis
noted another element of the profession of faith in the New Testament: that
only men are recorded as witnesses of the Resurrection, the Apostles but no
women. “This is because,” he explained, “according to Jewish law of the time,
women and children couldn't give reliable, credible witness. In the Gospels,
however, women have a primary, fundamental role. We can see here an argument in
favour of the historical actuality of the Resurrection. If it had been made up,
in the context of the time, it would not have been connected to the
testimonials of women. The evangelists instead simply narrate what had
happened: the women were the first witnesses. This says that God's choices are
not made in accordance with human criteria. The first witnesses of Jesus' birth
are the shepherds, simple and humble people. The first witnesses of the
Resurrection are women. This is beautiful. And this is a bit the mission of
women, of mothers and women: witnessing to their children and their
grandchildren that Jesus is alive. He is the Living One. He is the Risen One.
Mothers and women, go forward with this witness! For God, what counts is our
hearts.”
“This
also leads us to reflect on how women, in the Church and in the journey of
faith, have had and still today have a unique role in opening doors to the
Lord, in following him and conveying his face, because seeing with faith always
takes love's gaze, which is simple and profound. It is more difficult for the
Apostles and disciples to believe: not for the women. Peter runs to the tomb,
but stops before the empty tomb. Thomas has to touch the wounds on Jesus' body
with his own hands. Even in our faith journeys it is important to know and to
feel that God loves us; not to be afraid to love him: faith is professed with
the mouth and with the heart, with words and with love.”
The
Holy Father recalled that, after the apparitions to the women, there were
others in which Jesus made himself present in a new way. “He is the Crucified
One but his body is glorious. He did not return to his earthly life, but rather
in a new condition. At first they don't recognize him and only through his
words and his deeds are their eyes opened. Encountering the Risen One
transforms them, gives new strength to their faith, an unshakeable foundation.
For us too, there are many signs by which the Risen One makes himself known:
Sacred Scripture, the Eucharist, the other Sacraments, charity, these gestures
of love bring a ray of the Risen One. Let us be enlightened by Christ's
Resurrection and transformed by its power so that, through us too, the signs of
death might give way to signs of life in the world.”
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Below is the English
summary of His Holiness Pope Francis’ General Audience catechesis:
Taking up the series of Catechesis on the Creed, we now turn to the passage:
“He rose again on the third day, in accordance with the Scriptures”. Our belief
in Christ’s Resurrection is the very heart of our faith, the basis of our hope
in God’s promises and our trust in his victory over sin and death. The first
witnesses of the Resurrection were women: moved by love to go to the tomb, they
accept with joy the message of the Resurrection and then tell the good news to
the Apostles. So it must be with us; we need to share the joy born of our faith
in the Resurrection! In Church’s history, women have had a special role in opening
doors to faith in Christ, for faith is always a response to love. With the eyes
of faith, we too encounter the risen Lord in the many signs of his presence:
the Scriptures, the Eucharist and the other sacraments, and the acts of
charity, goodness, forgiveness and mercy which bring a ray of his Resurrection
into our world. May our faith in the risen Christ enable us to be living signs
in our world of the triumph of life and hope over evil, sin and death.
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May our encounter with the Risen Lord transform us into joyful, faithful, credible witnesses of the Gospel.
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