TENTH MEDITATION

Resurrection
After Saturday comes Sunday, and as they say in my land, there is no storm that
does not clear, but you have to be patient and let the clouds pass by. The
followers of Jesus, faced with the experience of his death, of his absence, sink
into despair, fear, failure, fragility and a feeling of abandonment. But we can't
forget the prophetic words of Jesus about his death and resurrection, nor his
committed love for the human being, nor those gestures of closeness to
poverty, disease and sin that filled with hope those who received Him.

The disciples carry within them the memory of how long they have lived with the
Master. But it is a memory full of nostalgia and a source of sadness, because
everything that they waited and hoped for with Him and through Him seems
irretrievably lost. That was what the disciples of Emmaus were experiencing on their
way (Lk 24, 13-34). These disciples represent many religious who still live totally
immersed in Holy Saturday, living in nostalgia and perhaps a little sadness.
Experiencing failure and unfulfilled prospects, taking tiresome steps back home, where
we can take refuge and be comfortable, but defeated and disappointed.

Just as the fears of the Emmaus disciples prevent them from remembering the words
of Jesus, our own insecurities and fears also make us forget his teachings, his gestures,
his words ... We have forgotten our first love in the way of our life, and now it is our
turn, like the disciples of Emmaus, to recognize Jesus on our way, to remember his
covenant, to await his promise; We must review the past to open ourselves to the
future, look to death to realize the new life, with the certainty that God is faithful to
his promises.

Remember that first love that made us fall in love one day and that we live as an
infinite love of God towards me. And what is an infinite love? Well, a love without
limits. We have limits in our human love but God's love is infinite, which goes beyond
death, which is the greatest limitation for man. God's love does not submit to time or
space, it is eternal, omnipresent. He breaks barriers to such an extent that out of pure
love he is capable of becoming man without ceasing to be God: “God became man so
that man could become God” (Saint Irenaeus of Lyon).

But it is not only on the cross that we must experience that immense love of God,
because the horizon of death would encompass it, it would put a limit on it, and that is
not the love of God. LOVE, with capital letters, is the one who conquers death,
because love is stronger than death, provided that it is in the first place stronger than
life. In this way the love stronger than life is sacrifice and death; love stronger than
death is resurrection. The paschal mystery - death and resurrection together - is a
mystery of transformation, the transformation of the carnal man into a spiritual and
even divine man by participation.

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 To understand this, it is necessary, as always, to start from experience and
enlightened by faith (as those of Emmaus did, remembering the words of Jesus, his
gestures, his Eucharist). This is the experience we have of love, which persuades us
that there is in man an irresistible desire for immortality.

In order to believe and live immortality, the first thing we must do is accept death, but
not those of our loved ones or death in general, that I think we have or should have
more or less assumed1. Because the human being cannot subsists in and by himself.
He cannot prolong an iota of his life. That is why, deep in our hearts, the need arises
to rebel against those limits imposed by our own physiology. That is why we become
obfuscated in prolonging our existence: we take care of ourselves, we try to leave
something that reminds us (a work, a book ...), and we who do not have children, we
hope that our students will remember us. But we will be very few who will get
perpetuals in the memory of some, and slowly our memory will disappear in this
mortal world.

In truth, I cannot survive in another except if there is an Other who is eternal and who
loves me enough to welcome me in Him. One cannot be immortal except in God. Only
a God who loves me has the power, not to prevent me from dying, but to resurrect
me. Only love is stronger than death: "There is no greater love than the one who lays
down his life for his friends" (Jn 15:13). If we do not understand this, if we do not
accept that only death is the way of new life, of renewed life, of immortality, we will
continue to live in death, in the slavery of the one who wants to live according to flesh
and blood, who is attached to what it is and what it has.

In us the life, present life, biological life, mortal life, is stronger than love. This does
not mean underestimating life, nor rejecting the great gift that God has given us, nor
even, as in past times, belittling it and condemning it as pure sin. But trying to live it
not from the slavery of finite existence, but from the freedom of those who see in it
the springboard to immortality.

In Jesus love has been stronger than life. His death is that of an absolutely free man,
absolutely detached from himself and everything, totally loving. Christ has lived only
by the Father and for the Father, therefore, in the Other more than in himself. This is
love, living in the other, by and for the other. But to live in another is to die for one.
To say that Jesus has risen (or that the Father has risen Jesus), is to say that, for this
man fully man, in whom love has been stronger than life, love is forever stronger than
death. He

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1. “What is true on earth but death? Look absolutely at everything in this life, good and bad, both good
and bad; What is true here but death? You have progressed: what you are today, you know that; what
you will be tomorrow you don't know. [...] Wherever you turn, everything is uncertain: only death is
certain. You are poor: you do not know if you will become rich; you are ignorant: it is not certain that
you can instruct yourself; you are sick: there is no assurance that you will regain health. You were born:
you will surely die; but in this same security of death, what is not certain is the day of death. In the
midst of all these uncertainties, where only death is certain, although its time is uncertain, and about
which one worries so much, and which in no way can be avoided, every man vainly toils during the life of
his life. he. " (St. Augustine. The city of God)

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has risen, he is Alive, because he has died 2. No one can be resurrected without first
having died.

Christ resurrects us by forgiving us, he makes us, despite our monstrous mediocrity,
capable of divine and eternal life. The Lord resurrects us in mercy, despite the
backpack of sin and misery that we carry 3. The Lord, as always, is capable of making
what we judge to be bad, a gesture of love, a grace, a gift for our existence. As Pope
Francis says: “Because this is the strength of God: to turn everything that happens to
us, even the bad, into something good. He brings serenity in our storms, because with
God life never dies”. We must make an effort to listen, praying with recollection, in the
attentive silence of faith, to Christ who tells us: "You will not die." It is He, and He
alone, who grounds our immortality.

Contemplating the resurrection of the Lord is an invitation made to us to a risen life,

which is nothing other than a life transformed or, if you prefer, transfigured. "The
figure of this world passes away" (1 Cor 7:31). To live the resurrection of Jesus as
religious is to welcome a Christ who acts in our freedom, in our actions, in our
decision-making, in our life choices, in the discernments we make. To participate in
the resurrection of Jesus, is to change direction, like the disciples of Emmaus, it is not
to take shelter in our home / comfort / safety, but to announce Jesus who lives, it is a
return to Jerusalem, to conflict, to the reality that overflows us, to the place of death,
to announce together, with the brothers, that Christ gives life.

Living the Resurrection of Jesus is allowing oneself to be transfigured by Jesus,

because he is Love and love transfigures everything it touches. If it is transfiguring, it is
divine. Since it is God who is present in our freedom, for Him to transfigure us means
to divinize us, to make us what He is. It is not a mere restart of our earthly and carnal
existence, but a total metamorphosis (metanoia / conversion / renovatio) 4 that must
make it, as Saint Paul says, a “spiritual body” 5.

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2. The death of Christ is truly a “transit to the Father”, which does not annihilate his life, since, in the
precious expression of Hans Küng, it consists of a “dying within God”. Thus, the Resurrection takes place
on the same cross, where Christ "consummates" his life and his work (Jn 19:30), being "lifted up" on
earth as a sign of his exaltation in the glory of God. (Torres Queiruga. Rethinking the resurrection.)
3. The more we feel miserable, the more we must trust in God's mercy. Because, between mercy and
misery, there is such a great relationship that one cannot be done without the other. (Saint Francis de
Sales).
4. Believing in the Resurrection is believing in heart and in word. Believe with your head and your
hands. Denying that pain has the last word. Risk thinking that we are definitely not alone. Jump into
the void in life, for life, and face each day as if you were there. Advance through doubt. To treasure,
without merit or guarantee, some fragile certainty. Smile in the dark hour with the most lucid laugh that
I can imagine. Because Love speaks in its own way, blessing the cursed, caressing the untouchables, and
removing the blessed from the crosses. José María R. Olaizola
5. Someone will ask: How are the dead raised? With what kind of body? Your question doesn't make
sense. What you sow does not come to life, if it does not die first. And what you sow is not the plant as
it will sprout, but a simple grain, wheat, for example, or any other plant. And God gives each seed the
shape he wants, each kind of seed, the body that corresponds to it. Not all bodies are identical (...) The
same thing happens with the resurrection of the dead: corruptible bodies are sown and they will rise
incorruptible; humbled bodies are sown and they will rise glorious; Weak bodies are sown and they will
rise full of strength; Purely natural bodies are sown and spiritual bodies will be resurrected. Because

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In resurrecting, Christ has not stripped himself of his humanity, he has not rejected his
"flesh", the risen Christ is Man-God for all eternity. After the Resurrection, the man-
Jesus lives in the very heart of the Trinity. Why has God become man if not to take us
with Him, so that "through Him, with Him and in Him" we live, in the heart of the
Trinity, the life of God?

It is worth giving his life so that men know it and that it become his hope. It is worth
feeling in our own life, many times still sitting at the doors of the tomb, to experience
that new life that opens a path towards our own divinization. Jesus becomes for us a
journey of faith, in truth and in a renewed life, in a participation in the Divine Trinity 6.

In these last moments of these exercises, I invite you to contemplate the experience of
the disciples. In the apparitions, in the encounters with the risen one, which suppose
for these fearful men a new profound experience, a new existence. Our faith in the
Risen One also transforms our life, frees it from fear and gives us firm hope. Let us
allow ourselves to be found by the Risen Jesus! Christ is alive and true, he is always
present in our midst, he walks with us to guide our lives, to open our eyes. Let us have
confidence in the Risen One who has the power to give life, to make us reborn as
children of God, because that trust transforms our existence: it frees it from fear, gives
it firm hope, animates it by which gives full meaning to existence, God's love.

Let us welcome the Lord, like the disciples of Emmaus, let the Risen One enter our
home and our hearts, even if the doors are sometimes closed. Let him share with us
his word and his food, because he wants to offer us joy and peace, life and hope, gifts
that we need for our human and spiritual rebirth. Let us let the risen Jesus come to
meet us and make us new.

Let us put our trust in him and let him be our strength. Let it be present in our
poverty, in our doubts, in our fears, in our crosses and graves 7. Let us leave the doors
and windows open so that the Spirit of God comes upon us, floods us, thus allowing
ourselves to be guided by Him, in order to revitalize our consecration. I take up the
invitation that Pope Francis made us on the occasion of the Piarist Jubilee Year: “I
invite

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there is a purely natural body and there is also a spiritual body. (...) In the same way that we have been
clothed with the image of the earthly man, we will also be clothed with the image of the heavenly man.
I assure you, brethren, that the purely human cannot have a part in the Kingdom of God, nor can
corruption inherit what is incorruptible. I'm going to reveal a mystery to you: Not all of us will die, but
we will all be transformed. (1 Cor 15, 35ff)
6. I am the way, the truth and the life ... and here I am. A path to travel, a truth to be announced, a life
to be given. I am the path. And if you walk with me, I guarantee you fatigue, hours of weakness,
difficult crossroads, but also companions, rest, laughter and an infinite horizon. I am the truth. If you
proclaim me, they will point you, between disbelief and mockery, between misunderstanding and
rejection, but you will also feel that you sing, rise and announce a miracle. I am life. If you live me, you
will have struggle, fear and cross, but also blessedness, forgiveness and resurrection. (José María R.
Olaizola sj)
7. "But he told me:" My grace is enough for you and my strength is perfect in weakness "; therefore,
with great pleasure I will continue to glory in my weaknesses, especially so that the strength of Christ
may shine in me ”(Calasanz. Ep.704).

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you to live this Jubilee Year as a new "Pentecost of the Piarists." May the common
house of the Pious Schools be filled with the Holy Spirit, so that the necessary
communion may be created in you to carry out with force the mission of the Piarists in
the world, overcoming fears and barriers of all kinds. . That your persons, communities
and works can radiate in all languages, places and cultures, the liberating and saving
power of the Gospel. May the Lord help you to always have a missionary spirit and
availability to set out on your journey ”.

For prayer:

May we be, Lord, hands united in prayer and in gift.

United with your hands in the Father's, united with the fruitful wings of the Spirit,
united in the hands of the poor.
Hands of the Gospel, sowers of Life,
lamps of Hope, flights of Peace.
United to your solidarity Hands, breaking the Bread of all.
United to your Hands pierced on the crosses of the world.
United to your already glorious Easter hands. Open hands, without borders.
Able to narrow the whole world, faithful to the needy, being faithful to the Kingdom.
Tense in passion for justice, tender in love.
Hands that give what they receive, in multiplied gratuity,
always more hands, always more united.
(Pedro Casaldáliga)

For reflection and dialogue with God

• Are we willing to live in Other / others more than in ourselves? At this moment in
your life: What aspects of change must be given in you to live the new life?
• Do the exercise of contemplating the texts of the Resurrection: Are you a witness of
the resurrection? Do you experience a living Jesus in your own life? Do you show the
new life of Christ to others: community brothers, collaborators, needy ...?
• Will you be able, like the disciples of Emmaus, to return to Jerusalem? How would
you like your encounter with the risen Jesus to be?
• Make an evaluation of these days of retreat. What general conclusions emerge after
these days?

Texts to expand

Dolores Aleixandre. Women at the grave: a story that is ours

How can we seek the Risen One with Magdalene, Mary, Salome, the others ...? How
to make his story "our story"?

We are going to try to learn wisdom from these women whom, with OT language, we
can call hayil, “women of resources”, the same as Ruth (3,11) and that the woman
exalted in the book of Proverbs (Pr 31,10) and recognize in them their ability to face
events with wisdom and audacity.

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 The reality that is described in the stories as preceding Easter has the dramatic name
of death, failure, disappointment of all expectations. All the disciples, both men as
women, they thought throughout all that Saturday that they only had a corpse left in a
tomb.

The discouraged words of those of Emmaus "We hoped ... but ..." reflect a situation of
loss of hope that perhaps is also ours at a time when we speak of the absence of God,
of excess pain, of graves empty of hope. We too can feel as if we were still on Friday
evening, returning with a dejected spirit to bury projects, illusions and promises in the
grave.

We too can react: “crying and mourning” (Mk 16,10) “closing the doors out of fear ...”
(Jn 20,19), The stone is too big for our strength, the international order too unjust , the
violence too deep-rooted, the believing presence: irrelevant, the Church too fearful ...

That is why the temptation can be to “prolong the Sabbath”, to take refuge in an
evaded spirituality, to remain in an inert paralysis. Or take roads back to Emmaus that
lead away from the graves and the crucified and try to escape not only from his pain
but also from his memory.

But on the morning of the "first day of the week" there is an alternative path: that of
those who, then and now, start walking "still in the dark" and approach the places of
death to try to snatch from death some of its victory. Like those women tried to erase
something from their trail by dint of perfumes.

They know they can't move the stone, but that doesn't stop them. They are aware of
the fragility and disproportion of what they carry in their hands, but that lucidity does
not extinguish the fire of their compassion or make their love less obstinate.

Perhaps they do not live all this from the fullness of faith, nor do they give the name
of hope to their faltering steps at night. But they make this path open to
astonishment, supported by the memory of words that promise life, ready to allow
themselves to be surprised by a darkly foreseen presence.

The Easter Gospels "are on your side." They tell it, they tell us all, those women who
break into our cenacles again announcing: "We have seen the Lord!"

From them we receive the good news: the Living One always goes out to meet those
who seek him, floods them with his joy, sends them to console his people, invites them
to a new relationship of brothers and children. He always goes before us, word of
women.

Homily Pope Francis. Day of the Dead. 2019.

The readings we have heard remind us that we have come into the world to be
resurrected: we were not born for death, but for resurrection. As Saint Paul writes in
the second reading, from now on "we are citizens of heaven" (Phil 3:20) and, as Jesus
says in the Gospel, we will rise again on the last day (cf. Jn 6:40). And it is also the idea
of the resurrection that suggests to Judas Maccabeus in the first reading a work of

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great righteousness and nobility (2M 12,43). Also today we can ask ourselves: What
does the idea of the resurrection suggest to me? How do I respond to my call to
resuscitate?

A first indication is offered by Jesus, who in today's Gospel says: "Whoever comes to
me I will not cast out" (Jn 6:37). This is his invitation: "Come to me" (Mt 11:28). Go to
Jesus, the one who lives, to be vaccinated against death, against the fear that
everything will end. Go to Jesus: It may seem like an obvious and generic spiritual
exhortation. But let's try to make it concrete, asking ourselves questions like these:
Today, in the work that I have had at hand in the office, have I drawn closer to the
Lord? Have I turned it into an occasion for dialogue with Him? And with the people
that I have met, have I come to Jesus, have I led them to Him in my prayer? Or have I
done everything more good by shutting myself up in my thoughts, rejoicing only about
what went well for me and regretting what went wrong? In short, do I live by going to
the Lord or do I turn around on myself? What is the direction of my path? Do I just
want to make a good impression, keep my position, my time, my space, or do I go to
the Lord?

Jesus' phrase is disconcerting: Whoever comes to me I will not cast out. He is

affirming the expulsion of the Christian who does not go to Him. For those who believe
there is no middle ground: they cannot be of Jesus and turn on themselves. Whoever
belongs to Jesus lives towards Him.

Life is all an exit: from the womb to come to light, from childhood to enter
adolescence, from adolescence to adulthood and so on, until leaving this world.
Today, as we pray for our brother Cardinals and Bishops, who have left this life to meet
the Risen One, we cannot forget the most important and most difficult way out, which
gives meaning to all the others: that of ourselves. Only by coming out of ourselves do
we open the door that leads to the Lord. Let us ask for this grace: “Lord, I wish to go to
You, through the roads and fellow travelers of each day. Help me to get out of myself,
to go to meet you, you who are life ”.

I would like to express a second idea, referring to the resurrection, taken from the
first Reading, of the noble gesture performed by Judas Maccabeus for the dead. It is
written there that he did so because he considered "that a magnificent prize was
reserved for those who had died piously" (2M 12,45). That is to say, it is the feelings of
pity that generate a magnificent prize. Mercy towards others opens wide the doors of
eternity. To lean over those in need to serve them is to enter the antechamber of
paradise. If, as Saint Paul recalls, "charity never passes" (1 Cor 13,8), then it is precisely
the bridge that connects earth to heaven. We can thus ask ourselves if we are
advancing on this bridge: am I moved by the situation of someone who is in need? Do
I know how to cry for the one who suffers? Do I pray for those that no one
remembers? Do I help someone who has nothing to return the favor with? It is not
good humor, it is not trivial charity, it is questions of life, questions of resurrection.

Finally, a third encouragement in view of the resurrection. I take it from the Spiritual
Exercises, in which Saint Ignatius suggests that, before making an important decision,
one must imagine oneself in the presence of God at the end of time. That is the

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appointment that cannot be postponed, the arrival point of all, of all of us. So, each
life choice faced in this perspective is well oriented, because closer to the resurrection,
which is the meaning and purpose of life. Just as the moment of leaving is calculated
by the place of arrival, just as the seed is judged by the harvest, so life is judged well
from its end, from its end. Saint Ignatius writes: «Considering how I will find myself on
the day of judgment, to think how then I would have liked to have deliberated about
the present thing; and the rule that then I would like to have had, take it now
»(Spiritual Exercises, 187). It can be a useful exercise to see reality with the Lord's eyes
and not just our own; to have a look projected towards the future, towards the
resurrection, and not only on the today that passes; to make decisions that have the
taste of eternity, the taste of love.

Do I go out of myself to go every day to the Lord? Do I have feelings and gestures of
pity for those in need? Do I make the important decisions in the presence of God? Let
us allow ourselves to be provoked by at least one of these three stimuli. We will be
more in tune with the desire of Jesus in today's Gospel: not to lose anything that the
Father has given him (cf. Jn 6:39). In the midst of so many voices in the world that
make us lose our sense of existence, let us tune ourselves to the will of Jesus, risen and
alive: we will make the present moment a dawn of resurrection.