I saw Him!

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Tuesday in the Octave of Easter

I saw the risen Christ this morning.

I was sitting in the monastery refectory at 5:45 am, having my usual cup of coffee before Morning Prayer. I looked around the room and saw the risen Christ shining through the building, because if Christ were not risen, none of what I was seeing would exist. And when I went into the church and sat in my choir stall, again I realized that none of what I saw or was experiencing would exist if Christ had not been risen from the dead.

We began Morning Prayer by reciting the psalms. Ok, the psalms would still exist because they pre-date the birth of Jesus, but the settings in which we pray the psalms, and the interpretations we give to the psalms (since so many of them speak of the risen Christ if you know what to look for), and the music, and the prayers, and my relationships with my confrères, and the massive Paschal Candle lit and shining brightly and the flowers, especially the lilies which always look like trumpets to me, and, of course, the very Abbey Church itself, would not exist if Christ had not been risen from the dead.

And I thought about my life, and what my life was like before the risen Christ had led me to faith and eventually to the monastery, and I shudder to think of what my life would have been like if none of that had ever happened, and how lost I would be, and how empty my life would be, and how impossible it would be for me to have access to God the Father and how there would be no chance for me to enter heaven because I would still be in my sins since I could never pray the Jesus Prayer because He would have no power in my life. I remember the wonderful passage from Ephesians---no, wait! I couldn’t, because the letter to the Ephesians would never have been written, if Christ had not been risen from the dead.

And so He is all around me, and He has saturated my life, and still does because daily He works in me and keeps me going.

Look around yourself. Note that this reflection would not exist if Christ were not risen from the dead, and you would never have heard of me. Look at all the objects around you in your home and perhaps in your pockets that would simply not have been there. And think, like I have, of what your life would be like if Christ were not risen from the dead and there were no Church, no faith, no baptism, no Eucharist, no Savior. And give thanks, for the Lord has been risen! Amen. Alleluia!

God bless you!