The Second Week of Easter

Resurrection, Caravaggio

What good would life have been to us,

had Christ not come as our Redeemer?

Father, how wonderful your care for us!

How boundless your merciful love!

To ransom a slave you gave away your Son.

O happy fault,

O necessary sin of Adam,

which gained for us so great a Redeemer!  

                                                                   ~St. Augustine, Exsultet of Easter Missale Romanum 1970

This week I am  meditating upon St. Thomas's great profession of faith:  "My Lord and my God!"  I am so grateful to God for His love for me, a wretched sinner, and His gift to me of union with Him.  As I think back over my own sinful past,  I have sometimes been angry.  Why did I do such foolish things?  Where was God when I was afraid, lonely, or in despair? When I "have sinned in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done or have failed to do"?  I am trying now to see God in all things, even in those difficult moments of my past.  And what do I see?  

God the Father, Veronese

 I see a loving Father who was at my side at every moment, who never failed to see and love me even as I turned my back on Him, who was weeping to see me abandon my true self for empty moments of indulgence.

The Holy Spirit, Giaquinto

I see the Holy Spirit, hovering over the scene, convicting me of sin even as I acted upon my own whims and sinful desires, pouring out the grace that would bring me back to God.  

The Raising of Lazarus, Bloch

 I see Jesus, grieving over my spiritual death as He wept over His friend Lazarus, praying for me in the garden, walking the Via Dolorosa to the Cross.  

Noli Me Tangere, Tissot

 Most of all, I see the moment of Resurrection joy!  In this joy, all of the loving plan of God to bring me home to His Heart is finally realized.  In this joy, she who sinned much is brought to love much, because she has been forgiven everything.  In this joy, I am united to the Father and the Son in a union as intimate as their own union with one another. Oh, happy fault! 

The Resurrection of Christ and the Women at the Tomb, Fra Angelico