He is Risen, Alleluia!

The Risen Lord
porcelain by Therese Meisling

Two thoughts for the day. The first is offered as an introduction to Easter Sunday's Mass in Magnificat and written by Pope Benedict.

Faith in the resurrection of Jesus says that there is a future for every human being; the cry for unending life which is a part of the person is indeed answered. Through Jesus we do know 'the room where exiled love lays down its victory.' He himself is this place, and he calls us to be with him and in dependence on him. He calls us to keep this place open within the world so that he, the exiled love, may reappear over and over in the world...God exists; that is the real message of Easter. Anyone who even begins to grasp what this means knows what it means to be redeemed.

Pope Benedict XVI

The other is offered by Richard Rohr, O.F. M. in his book Radical Grace.

The Subversive, Risen Christ

Jesus is among us now in a new way as the Risen Christ, the Christ who is everywhere, beyond all limits of space and time. On Good Friday we say the relationship of all humanity to God: We kill what we should love. We're afraid of the gift that would free us. On Easter Sunday we celebrate Jesus coming back into a world that rejected Him.

If you have ever been rejected, you know how unlikely it is to come back into the midst of those who have said, We do not want you. Yet that's the eternal mystery we celebrate: God is always coming back into a world that for some unbelievable reason does not want God. It's almost impossible to believe that could be true. And yet Jesus, in his humility, finds ways to come back. Jesus knows we didn't like the first time what he had to say. We weren't ready for that much freedom or that much truth. Humankind can't bear that much reality or that much love in one moment of history.

So God had to come back in a disguised form. God had to come back, as it were, secretly, as a subversive, hidden--the Risen Christ. Now he can be everywhere, but we can't capture him. We can't name him too precisely. He can always break through in new and unexpected ways. That's the Risen Christ the world is never ready for and never expects, and sadly, does not even want. That's the Christ who energizes his Church, The Christ forever beyond our control.

from For Teens on the Risen Christ

We have been given so much in the love of God. If we could just accept the gift of life offered with humility by our Risen Lord! We are such frail lace tatted by the hand of God. The strength of the fiber is in the love of the Risen Lord and the intricacies of the life of that work is in the working of the Holy Spirit!

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Thanks be to God! Alleluia!!!