Everything is About Eternity

​Jesus is Risen! He has conquered sin and death! Alleluia! Alleluia! 
​As we focus on what is most obvious, such as the new life Jesus offers and the gift of salvation with its accompanying graces, it is also important to include reflection upon eternity. During Lent we intensified our prayer, offered acts of self-denial, and gave alms, and while we should continue these actions in some form, we must consider that what came before the Resurrection was about the finite. Although Jesus conquered death, we still must pass through it. On that day our thoughts, reflections, and ability to give will end, just as it did for Jesus. However, the Paschal mysteries put death and eternal life into new perspective. The Resurrection of Jesus changed everything about the effects of death. That is, because He rose, we too will rise on the last day: because of His Resurrection everything is now oriented upon eternity, an eternity offered to us. And therefore, just as the focus needed to shift for the first witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ on that Easter morning, so does ours. With Jesus’ rising, the apostles were interiorly transformed into a community of believers (a community to which we also belong!) whose focus was on building the Kingdom that Jesus brought about for eternity. With His rising, everything is now oriented toward new life. This will ever be true: everything is about eternity! 

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This reality, bound to the Resurrection, is now the framework of our lives as Christians: after Jesus rose everything was different, so therefore, after Easter we are different. In whatever way we participated in Lent, our actions changed us on an interior level, even if imperceptibly. Let us consider how our Lenten observance had communal and private dimensions to it. Communally, we joined with the Church through the liturgies of the season, and privately we chose our own expressions of self-denial, almsgiving, and prayer. With Easter our focus also remains twofold, of course, (private and communal). Personal holiness is something only we can work on, but our holiness only has meaning in light of our membership in the community, the Body of Christ. What we do and how we pray effects the entire Body of Christ, and therefore, our focus should always be outward. Jesus’ death and Resurrection ‘gave power’ to the Sacraments and so Baptism became more than just cleansing, but a unification with His Body. Most of all, because of His Resurrection, Baptism offers the gift of salvation, which, of course, is about eternity. We are empowered with various spiritual gifts so that we can build His Kingdom, a responsibility which leads to eternity. Because He rose, we have Jesus with us in every way the apostles did before He died, but we also share in the deeper, more mysterious and incomprehensible way He comes through His Holy Spirit with grace.

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Everything is about eternity. Therefore, our lives should re-orient to our final destination no matter when the day of our entrance into it may arrive. What this means is that our longing should be increased, not decreased. This is not the time to shrug and say, “It’s lovely that we are now assured of salvation, so I can sit back and enjoy that thought.” Rather, the new reality is that we should long for Heaven even more, with much greater fervor and intensity. Of course, if we are baptized, we are part of the Body of Christ and Heaven is to be our home; but instead of simply being content with that thought, our longing for the day when we are finally home should increase. The way to express that hunger and the energy that comes with it is to continue our works of mercy, charity, kindness, and even penitential acts offered in reparation for sin, ours and that of the world. Rather than the past being over, it is transformed; that is, in many ways it has become more important to bring what we know out into the world in order to do what Jesus asked of His disciples: Go out and bring the faith to the ends of the earth. (paraphrase of Matthew 28:19)

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Let us go even further this Easter season, not only praying and reflecting over the Resurrection as an act that God worked with His Son to offer eternal life, but let us pray about how we might respond to it. Remember, with the Resurrection comes focus on the eternal, not just for us individually, but for the world. At the end of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus took the disciples to a mountain in Galilee, and while they worshipped Him, they were also fearful of what life would be like without Him present physically as their leader. (Matthew wrote, “…they worshipped, but they doubted.”) To this Jesus said, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations... teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:17-20) These words still apply to His disciples today and we are empowered just as those first disciples were, possible because Jesus, the Risen one, is the Son of God. As a result, we should be unafraid to evangelize by living our faith openly with the willingness to share it in word and deed so that all may know of the salvation offered by God through the power of the Resurrection. Indeed, everything is about eternity, an eternity in which we will ever be with Jesus.

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May we rejoice and be glad that Jesus is Risen! May our rejoicing aid in the adoption of renewed focus on the eternal! May we share all that we have received with the world in which we live and with those with whom we interact! And may we grow in faith, hope, love and mercy! Let us meet rejoicing at the empty tomb of Jesus! Alleluia! Easter blessings! Peace!

                      ©Michele L. Catanese


Images:
1. Altarpiece painting; Resurrection, Isenheim Altarpiece, Matthias Grunewald.
2. My photo; Tuolumne meadows, Yosemite National Park, California.
3. Icon; The Harrowing of Hell, traditional Resurrection icon. This is my photo of an icon I have.
4. My photo; the forum in ancient Philippi, Greece. St. Paul and others would have preached the Good News from here.
5. Icon; The Risen Christ, by Fr. William Hart McNichols. If you are interested, a copy can be purchased at fineartamerica.com/featured/the-risen-christ-014-william-hart-mcnichols.html

Note: In compliance with GDPR rules, I wish to make it clear that I do not gather any information on any of my readers at any time.       

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