Christ is Risen! Alleluia!
Yes, Christ escaped the tomb where death reigns. In the words of the hymn The Lord of the Dance by English songwriter Sydney Carter in 1963:
"They cut me down and I leapt up high;
I am the life that’ll never, never die.
I’ll live in you if you’ll live in me:
I am the Lord of the dance, said he.”
The Resurrection of Jesus promises that things can always be new again. It’s never too late to start over. Nothing is irrevocable. No betrayal is final. No sin is unforgivable. Every form of death can be overcome. There is no loss that cannot be redeemed. Every day begins as a blank page, upon which the grace of God revealed in our lives can be written in indelible ink and in bold letters.
As an Easter people, we claim that, just as Christ “leapt up high” from the tomb, we too leap with Christ from our grave. Most importantly, we trust that we not only leap from the grave of our earthly death but also from the mini graves of our failures and faults.
In believing that Jesus rose physically from the grave, we also believe that no matter what we’ve done, our future is forever full in Christ’s light and waiting for wonderful new possibilities. And so, this coming Sunday we celebrate the Mercy of God, eternally present, eternally making us new.
Perhaps you’ve read countless encouragements from Saint Francis de Sales to “begin anew,” to accept our failures, turn them over to God’s mercy and start again. These Salesian encouragements come from the heart of the mystery of the Risen Christ.
We are now in the Easter Season, fifty days of celebrating the Lord of the dance leaping to new life for and in us. While death surrounds us in so many visages, within and without, it can seem overwhelming and even futile to attempt to believe in new life but we take heart. We look at the Risen One and see the power of Christ move through us and all of God’s creation. We raise our voices in song and our hearts to the light. We praise God with life refreshed and forgiven, with the stone rolled back and glory given.
Father Jack Loughran, OSFS
Provincial
Toledo-Detroit Province
