Death and Resurrection

The second reading at Mass a few weeks ago struck me. In the first few lines, St. Paul writes:

Brothers and sisters: The love of Christ impels us,

once we have come to the conviction that one died for all;

therefore, all have died.

When I heard this read aloud at Mass, my brow furrowed. Ah, yes, I thought. There's that Christian joy we desire. We have all died. However, we know as Christians that Christ has conquered death. Why, then, is it necessary for us to die as well? 

You see, we do not die in addition to Christ, but alongside Him, united in His sufferings so that we may be raised from the dead as He was. This is directly related to our participation in the Eucharist. 

Let me elaborate a bit. At a retreat last month, Sister Bethany Madonna of the Sisters of Life presented a startling truth: "When God looks upon his son, He sees us in the Body of Christ." How beautiful it is that our Father gazes upon all of us when He looks upon the wounds of His Son! We are Christ's Body. We die and rise with Christ because we participate in Him through our reception of the Eucharist in Holy Communion. (There's a great LifeTeen article on our participation in the Body of Christ here.) We die and rise with Christ because we make up His Body. 

Like Christ, we must die to ourselves to complete the Will of the Father. Like Christ, we must die in order to rise. Like Christ, we may choose to be defeated or to trust in the Lord and bring glory to God from the depths of our death.

A priest recently mentioned to me that at the moment of Jesus' defeat, he accomplished everything. However, Jesus' disciples were left in the dark. They hid in fear, while silently, God battled the devil for them and won. He then emerged from death victorious and alive on Easter morning. At Christ's Resurrection, everyone rejoiced all the more because of the suffering and uncertainty they endured prior. 

We aren't God. Many times we will not understand suffering, those little "deaths" God has us endure in order to draw ever-closer to Him (though suffering does not come from God). However, though we may be uncertain as to why God allows us to suffer, we can always know with certainty that we will rise with Christ by the grace of God alone. We are called to emulate the suffering and submission of Christ, not seeking death, but dying as He did nonetheless so that we may have life (see John 10:10).

Christ's death won our salvation. Called to die with Him, we can participate in His victory. We, too, will rise by the grace of God. 

And that second reading from Mass ends on a note of Christian hope after all.

[W]hoever is in Christ is a new creation:
the old things have passed away;behold, new things have come.

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Behold, brothers and sisters, new things have come, for we are dying and rising with Christ. Thanks be to God. 

You can find the full reading from St. Paul's 2 Corinthians 5:14-17 here.

*Please pray for Sr. Bethany Madonna and the other Sisters of Life who, in preparation for making their perpetual vows on August 6th, are on a thirty-day retreat!