Lenten Reflection - Sunday Easter
The Seeds of Eternity Are Sown in Our Lives
"For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory." - Col 3:3-4
The resurrection is not the happy ending to a sad story. It is essential to our faith. If there were no resurrection of the dead, we would be, as Saint Paul says, the most pitiable people of all, people who worship a dead Jesus. Would God who loves us unconditionally, from eternity to eternity, allow all of the joys and pains of this life to vanish in the earth with our mortal flesh and bones? Will God allow our bodies, and that of Jesus, God's Beloved, to be lost in death?
Life on earth is the time when the seeds of the risen body are planted. Saint Paul says, "What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body." (1 Corinthians 15:42-44) We may not know fully what the "spiritual body" means. But we do know that who we are and how we have loved will persist from this side of eternity to the other side, for love is the greatest thing that remains (1 Corinthians 13:13).
This confidence that nothing we live in our bodies is lived in vain calls us to live every moment as a seed of eternity.
"Risen Christ, teach me to sow love in this life into the next."
inspired by Henri Nouwen
Fr. Tri Dinh, SJ
-----
Suggested reflection format
"For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory." - Col 3:3-4
The resurrection is not the happy ending to a sad story. It is essential to our faith. If there were no resurrection of the dead, we would be, as Saint Paul says, the most pitiable people of all, people who worship a dead Jesus. Would God who loves us unconditionally, from eternity to eternity, allow all of the joys and pains of this life to vanish in the earth with our mortal flesh and bones? Will God allow our bodies, and that of Jesus, God's Beloved, to be lost in death?
Life on earth is the time when the seeds of the risen body are planted. Saint Paul says, "What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body." (1 Corinthians 15:42-44) We may not know fully what the "spiritual body" means. But we do know that who we are and how we have loved will persist from this side of eternity to the other side, for love is the greatest thing that remains (1 Corinthians 13:13).
This confidence that nothing we live in our bodies is lived in vain calls us to live every moment as a seed of eternity.
"Risen Christ, teach me to sow love in this life into the next."
inspired by Henri Nouwen
Fr. Tri Dinh, SJ
-----
Suggested reflection format
posted by magis at
8:17 AM
