“I’m going to be doing only one thing: I shall begin to sing what I must sing eternally: ‘The Mercies of the Lord’ ” (St. Therese of Lisieux)
What I specifically intend to focus in on in this note is what happened to St. Therese AFTER she made her Act of Oblation to Merciful Love, the facts of which are less known and which highlight important aspects or elements of Therese’s mystical life and spiritual progress towards union with God.
Saint Therese wrote her famous Act of Oblation to Merciful Love on June 9, 1895 (link to the full text at the end of this note) in which she offered herself as a “Victim of Holocaust to God’s Merciful Love.” As she explains in her autobiography she received a special grace that day to make her offering to God’s Divine Mercy:
“This year June 9, [1895] the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, I received the grace to understand more than ever before how much Jesus desires to be loved.
I was thinking about the souls who offer themselves as victims of God’s Justice in order to turn away the punishments reserved to sinners, drawing them upon themselves. This offering seemed great and very generous to me, but I was far from feeling attracted to making it. From the depths of my heart, I cried out:
‘O my God! Will Your Justice alone find souls willing to immolate themselves as victims? Does not Your Merciful Love need them too? On every side this love is unknown, rejected; those hearts upon whom You would lavish it turn to creatures, seeking happiness from them with their miserable affection; they do this instead of throwing themselves into Your arms and of accepting Your infinite Love. O my God! Is Your disdained Love going to remain closed up within Your Heart? It seems to me that if You were to find souls offering themselves as victims of holocaust to Your Love, You would consume them rapidly; it seems to me, too, that You would be happy not to hold back the waves of infinite tenderness within You. If Your Justice loves to release itself, this Justice which extends only over the earth, how much more does Your Merciful Love desire to set souls on fire, since Your Mercy reaches to the heavens. O my Jesus, let me be this happy victim; consume Your holocaust with the fire of Your Divine Love.’”
You permitted me, dear Mother, to offer myself in this way to God, and you know the rivers or rather the oceans of graces that flooded my soul. Ah! since the happy day, it seems to me that Love penetrates and surrounds me, that at each moment this Merciful Love renews me, purifying my soul and leaving no trace of sin within it….” ((Story of a Soul, ICS Publications, 3rd Ed., pp. 181).
So we come now to the profound mystical experience Therese subsequently underwent, which might be called in mystical terminology “the spiritual wounding of the heart,” or transverberation. In the quote below Therese explains how her heart was mystically wounded by a dart of love a few days after she finished her Act ofOblation to MercifulLove:
“I had commenced the Stations of the Cross in Choir, then all at once I felt myself wounded by a dart of fire so ardent that I thought I must die. I do not know how to explain it; it was as if an invisible hand had plunged me wholly into fire. Oh, what fire, and what sweetness at the same time! I was burning with love, and I thought one minute, nay, one second more, and I shall not be able to support such ardour without dying. I understood then what the Saints have said of those states which they had experienced so often. For me I have but experienced it that once, only for an instant, and afterwards I fell back again into my habitual dryness. From the age of fourteen I have also experienced the assaults of love. Ah! how much I love God! But it was not at all to be compared to what I experienced after my offering to Love….” (Cruz, p.68; see References below).
Therese tells us elsewhere that:
“I have had several transports of love, and one in particular during my Novitiate when I remained for a whole week far removed from this world. It seemes as though a veil were thrown over all earthly things. But, I was not then consumed by a real fire. I was able to bear those transports of love without expecting to see the ties that bound me to earth give way; whilst, on the day of which I mentioned (the dart of fire), one minute, one second more and my soul must have been set free…. True, the Divine Hand had withdrawn the fiery dart – but the wound was unto death!” (Cruz, pp. 68-69; see References below).
A core feature of Carmelite spirituality is contemplation or contemplative prayer (Saint John of the Cross and Saint Teresa of Avila, both Carmelites, were great mystics and contemplatives). It is sometimes thought that Saint Therese was less graced with the gift of mystical contemplation but certainly the examples just given help to shed light on Therese’s mystical journey, and as Father Garrigou-LaGrange points out:
“Truly St. Teresa of Lisieux traced for us the simple road which leads to great heights. In her teaching, as it pleased Pope Pius XI to point out, the gift of wisdom appears in a lofty degree for the direction of souls thirsting for the truth and wishing, above all human conceptions, to live by the word of God….The way of childhood thus understood, especially as we see it toward the end of the life of St. Teresa of the Child Jesus, is very elevated in its simplicity. Its lofty simplicity comes home to us because the saint certainly passed through the night of the spirit (which corresponds to the sixth mansion of St. Teresa of Avila), as may be seen on reading chapter nine of the Histoire d’une ame. It was the reading of this chapter, some thirty years ago, that gave us the idea of explaining the night of the spirit by a profound and intense influence of the gift of understanding, which brings out in powerful relief the formal motive of humility and of each of the three theological virtues. Thereby these infused virtues are purified of all alloy or attachment to secondary and accessory motives on which until then the soul had dwelt excessively” (The Three Ages of the Interior Life, Chapter 41, regarding the way of spiritual childhood, emphasis added).
I do not have time in this short note to trace out St. Therese’s dark night of the soul and trial of faith that began around ten months after she composed her Act of Oblation to Merciful Love, but as Father Frederick L. Miller points out: “In her harrowing trial of faith that lasted with hardly any relief for a year and a half, Therese experienced an inexplicable grace, a mystical, infused sharing in Christ’s passion. She felt as her own the thirst of the Crucified for all those people who reject his love. The words of St. Paul offered her light in her darkness: ‘For our sake, God made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God ‘(2 Cor 5:22).“
The core of Saint Therese’s message, says Saint John Paul II, is the merciful love of God. In his Apostolic Letter Proclaiming Saint Therese of Lisieux a Doctor of the Church, Pope John Paul II made the following observation regarding the core of Saint Therese’s message:
“The core of her message is actually the mystery itself of God-Love, of the triune God infinitely perfect in himself. If genuine Christian spiritual experience should conform to the revealed truths in which God communicates himself and the mystery of his will (cf. Dei Verbum, 2), it must be said that Therese experienced divine revelation, going so far as to contemplate the fundamental truths of our faith united in the mystery of Trinitarian life. At the summit, as the source and goal, is the merciful love of the three divine Persons, as she expresses it, especially in her “Act of Oblation to Merciful Love.” At the root, on the subject’s part, is the experience of being the Father’s adoptive children in Jesus; this is the most authentic meaning of spiritual childhood, that is, the experience of divine filiation, under the movement of the Holy Spirit. At the root again, and standing before us, is our neighbor, others for whose salvation we must collaborate with and in Jesus, with the same merciful love as his.” (no. 8)
Therese’s last words moments before she died in Carmel were: “Oh! I love Him…My God…I love You.” She died on September 30, 1897.
Thomas L. Mulcahy, M.A.
References: For this note I am relying primarily on Joan Carroll Cruz’ book, Mysteries, Marvels, Miracles (TAN books), pp. 68-69. She references the quote about the dart of fire as follows: Sister Agnes of Jesus, Novissima Verba: The Last Conversations of St. Therese of the Child Jesus : May-September 1897 (London: Burns, Oates & Washbourne, Ltd., 1929), pp. 43-44. The subsequent quote about transports of love is referenced by Cruz as follows: Soeur Therese of Lisieux, The Little Flower of Jesus (Story of a Soul), T.N. Taylor, editor. (New York: P.J. Kennedy and Sons, 1912), p.195. The quote from Father Frederick L. Miller is from his article, “Saint Therese of Lisieux: Doctor of Divine Love” (September 22, 2020), available online.
Image: St. Therese of the Child Jesus in the photograph taken in the courtyard of the monastery of Lisieux Easter Monday, April 15, 1894.
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“I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection” (Philippians 3:10)
INTRODUCTION:
Reflecting on our Lord’s resurrection is always a profitable exercise. Indeed, if someone were to ask you why you are a Christian, would not the best response be that you believe in the risen Christ? Yes! We are Christians because we believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead! We read in Acts that “with great power the apostles bore witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great favor was accorded them all” (4:33). We meditate on the Lord’s resurrection because it is the source of great power and favor, a power so great that it will one day raise up the bodies of all believers to Eternal Life! Here, then, are ten short reflections regarding the resurrection of Jesus.
1. Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life
Jesus tells Martha, “I am the Resurrection and the Life” (John 11:25). Frankly, the verse is quite stunning and seems to me to be one of those special verses that’s geared up to have a high-level impact on our lives. Ask Martha, for she saw Jesus raise her brother back to life after Lazarus had been dead in the tomb four days. Certainly this is a verse we should meditate on! Deep reflection on this verse will no doubt “increase the temperature of our love for Jesus” as we see, more and more, that the resurrected Jesus is the source of blessings so transformative in scope that it would probably blow our minds if we could presently experience the unspeakable joys of Heaven that await us. But right here on planet earth it is a great comfort to know that the power of Jesus’ resurrection is flowing forth to us through so many channels of grace, thus giving us strength and hope to persevere through so many of life’s trials and difficulties. In short, we need POWER to persevere, and Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life, which means he is the source of amazing power (sufficient even to overcome death)! In any event, I expect this verse to “do a good work in your soul” if you make it the subject matter of a short meditation, or even if you just repeat it continuously throughout the day with joy in your heart.
2. The Resurrection of Jesus is a Saving Event
Besides being an historical event, the resurrection of Jesus is primarily a saving event. In this light Saint Paul teaches that Jesus was “delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification” (Romans 4:25). The Resurrection of Jesus “is more than a miracle and motive for faith. It is a saving event in its own right, since the dying and rising of Jesus together constitute the victory over sin and death. Baptism gives us a share in this double victory, for through it we die to sin and rise to new life with Christ” (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, p. 263).
“The Paschal mystery has two aspects: by his death, Christ liberates us from sin; by his Resurrection, he opens for us the way to a new life. This new life is above all justification that reinstates us in God’s grace, ‘so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life’ Justification consists in both victory over the death caused by sin and a new participation in grace. It brings about filial adoption so that men become Christ’s brethren, as Jesus himself called his disciples after his Resurrection: “Go and tell my brethren.” We are brethren not by nature, but by the gift of grace, because that adoptive filiation gains us a real share in the life of the only Son, which was fully revealed in his Resurrection” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 654).
We cannot discount the resurrection of Jesus as a saving event because it is only through His risen life that we are brought into that “newness of life” which constitutes the fullness of our salvation. “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” (Romans 6:4). Therefore, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
3. The women as the first witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection powerfully affirm its authenticity
One scholar of the Lord’s resurrection, Professor William Lane Craig, offers the following insights regarding the very first witnesses to the resurrection – who were all women with respect to encountering the empty tomb and the risen Lord himself (see John 20: 10-18; Matthew 28: 1-10). “Certainly these women were friends of Jesus. But when you understand the role of women in first-century Jewish society, what’s really extraordinary is that this empty tomb story should feature women as the discovers of the empty tomb in the first place. Women were on a very low rung of the social ladder in first-century Palestine….Women’s testimony was regarded as so worthless that they weren’t even allowed to serve as legal witnesses in a Jewish court of law. In light of this, it’s absolutely remarkable that the chief witnesses to the empty tomb are these women who were friends of Jesus. Any later legendary account would have certainly portrayed male disciples as discovering the tomb – Peter or John, for example. The fact that women are the first witnesses to the empty tomb is most plausibly explained by the reality that- like it or not – they were the discovers of the empty tomb. This shows that the Gospel writers faithfully recorded what happened, even if it was embarrassing (The Case For Easter, pp. 49-50).”
4. There were multiple resurrection appearances by Jesus which left the apostles fully convinced that Jesus had risen from the dead
For quick reference here is a summary of the ten resurrection appearances of Jesus (eleven if you include the appearance to St. Paul on the road to Damascus). Here’s the link:
It is a point not to be underestimated that Jesus made multiple resurrection appearances over the course of forty days. Thus, the apostles were not left wondering whether they had seen Jesus in the flesh following his death and burial – Jesus went out of his way on multiple occasions to make sure that they had! Consequently, you have complete unanimity among the remaining eleven apostles that they had seen the risen Christ. By way of contrast, we don’t have a case here where six of the apostles claimed to have seen the resurrected Christ, whereas three denied it, and two were not sure. And these were men that went on to live heroic lives, to suffer and die for what they had witnessed, spawning the amazing rise of the Christian faith despite insurmountable obstacles, and without any resort to violence.
As the great Biblical scholar C.H. Dodd states: “The main weight [regarding the truth of Jesus’ Resurrection] … is placed on the testimony that Jesus was ‘seen’ alive after death, by a number of his followers….” (The Founder of Christianity, page 167). “Something had happened to these men, which they could describe only by saying they had ‘seen the Lord’. This is not an appeal to any generalized ‘Christian experience’. It refers to a particular series of occurrences, unique in character, unrepeatable, and confined to a limited period” (p.168). Dodd therefore concludes:
“[For] the original witnesses [the resurrection of Jesus was] an immediate, intuitive certainty. They were dead sure they had met with Jesus, and there was no more to be said about it….Now they were new men in a new world, confident, courageous, enterprising, the leaders of a movement which made an immediate impact and went forward with an astonishing impetus.” (p. 170)
5. Through the Risen Christ comes the full outpouring of the Holy Spirit
“The Resurrection of Jesus is the total outpouring of the Spirit in the world, the flowing into creation of the immense flood which pours out from the Father in the Son” (F.X. Durwell, Holy Spirit of God, page 10). The Catechism of the Catholic Church amplifies Father Durrwell’s insight:
“This fullness of the Spirit was not to remain uniquely the Messiah’s, but was to be communicated to the whole messianic people. On several occasions Christ promised this outpouring of the Spirit, a promise which he fulfilled first on Easter Sunday and then more strikingly at Pentecost. Filled with the Holy Spirit the apostles began to proclaim “the mighty works of God,” and Peter declared this outpouring of the Spirit to be the sign of the messianic age. Those who believed in the apostolic preaching and were baptized received the gift of the Holy Spirit in their turn” ( CCC #1287).
In the theology of Saint Paul it is the saving power of the Gospel that empowers us to lead holy lives. The guiding theme of Paul’s Letter to the Romans, according to a former professor of mine from years ago, is power leading to life. We are in a state of moral helplessness without the saving power of the Gospel. But where does this power leading to life come from? It comes from the resurrection of Jesus Christ! As Paul states at the very beginning of Romans:
“This letter is from Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, chosen by God to be an apostle and sent out to preach his Good News. God promised this Good News long ago through his prophets in the holy Scriptures. The Good News is about his Son. In his earthly life he was born into King David’s family line, and he was shown to be the Son of God when he was raised from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit. He is Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 1: 1-4).
The full power of the Holy Spirit is unleashed by Jesus’ resurrection. Christ’s resurrection has ushered in the messianic age where the people of God will be led by the Holy Spirit! As Paul states in Romans 8:
“You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you” (8:9-11).
In short, through the eschatological power of Christ’s resurrection we who have faith in Christ live in the realm of the Spirit, which is the POWER which enables us to be truly holy.
6. The Eucharist is intrinsically linked to the Resurrection of the body of Jesus
There is no Holy Eucharist without the body and blood of Jesus Christ. And what is this body and blood of Jesus Christ but the resurrected Jesus! Jesus had certainly lost a tremendous amount of blood during his passion, and his body was badly mangled, but his physical life was restored to him – and gloriously so – by his resurrection. When we go to Mass, therefore, we go to the resurrection, and we receive the resurrected Christ – body, blood, soul and divinity.
The “Catholic Church professes that, in the celebration of the Eucharist, bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit and the instrumentality of the priest. Jesus said: ‘I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world. . . . For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink (Jn 6:51-55). The whole Christ is truly present, body, blood, soul, and divinity, under the appearances of bread and wine—the glorified Christ who rose from the dead after dying for our sins. This is what the Church means when she speaks of the ‘Real Presence’ of Christ in the Eucharist. This presence of Christ in the Eucharist is called ‘real’ not to exclude other types of his presence as if they could not be understood as real (cf. Catechism, no. 1374). The risen Christ is present to his Church in many ways, but most especially through the sacrament of his Body and Blood” (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops).
7. Jesus instituted the Sacrament of Confession during one of his resurrection appearances
Jesus wished to continue his ministry of the forgiveness of sins through the Apostles and their successors. Thus, following his glorious resurrection, Jesus conferred on the apostles the power to forgive sins, a power Jesus himself had exercised during his earthly ministry. It is recounted in John’s Gospel that, during a resurrection appearance, Jesus met with the apostles and said to them, in particular: “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you. And when he said this, he breathed on them , and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven: if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20: 21-23)
Confession, thus, is a Resurrection gift from Jesus who has passed on his ministry of forgiving sins (what we call the Sacrament of Confession) to the apostles and their successors. From our Lord’s Resurrection blossomed this great gift for the church! Paragraph 1461 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church thus states:
“Since Christ entrusted to his apostles the ministry of reconciliation, bishops who are their successors, and priests, the bishops’ collaborators, continue to exercise this ministry. Indeed, bishops and priests, by virtue of the Sacrament of Holy Orders, have the power to forgive all sins “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
I don’t know how to say this: forgiveness of sins is the greatest need every person has. Jesus, in His Infinite Wisdom, and in His genius as the leader of souls, has willed that forgiveness of sins be readily available from his priests, where the concrete actions of forgiveness, absolution, and spiritual guidance can take place in a powerful and effective manner appropriately tailored to our human situation, and leading thus to an authentic spiritual resurrection of our souls!
8. The Resurrection appearances of Jesus point to the sacramental life of the Church
At no. 1116 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church it states that “Sacraments are ‘powers that comes forth’ from the Body of Christ, which is ever-living and life-giving. They are actions of the Holy Spirit at work in his Body, the Church. They are ‘the masterworks of God’ in the new and everlasting covenant.” In the following resurrection appearances Jesus alludes to, or makes reference to, the sacramental life of the Church.
Baptism: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit….” (Matthew 28:19; see also Mark 16:16).
Eucharist: “Then the two told what had happened on the road [to Emmaus], and how they had recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread” (Luke 24:35). See CCC 1329, which states, in part: “The Breaking of Bread…. It is by this action that his disciples will recognize him after his Resurrection, and it is this expression that the first Christians will use to designate their Eucharistic assemblies; by doing so they signified that all who eat the one broken bread, Christ, enter into communion with him and form but one body in him.“
Confession: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven: if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20: 22-23). See number 7 above.
Confirmation: “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you. And when he said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20: 21-22). The Catechism of the Catholic Church cites this verse at no. 1287 in its section on the Sacrament of Confirmation. “Here we see that the risen humanity of Jesus has become a sacrament of the divine Spirit” (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, p. 199). See also CCC 1116.
Priesthood. Jesus, by empowering the apostles with the priestly function of forgiving sins in John 20: 21-23, confirms the existence of the ministerial priesthood. Moreover, when Jesus reconfirmed Peter as the head of the Church during his resurrection appearance to the apostles by the Sea of Tiberias (see John 21: 1-19), he simultaneously reaffirms the duty of the ministerial priesthood to care for his sheep (“Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my lambs” (John 21: 15 ). See also CCC 1551 (in the section on the Sacrament of Holy Orders) which references John 21: 15.
Anointing of the Sick: “[T]hey will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well” (Mark 16:18). The Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1507, references this verse in its section on the Anointing of the Sick, saying, “The risen Lord renews this mission [of healing the sick] – “In my name . . . they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover” – and confirms it through the signs that the Church performs by invoking his name. These signs demonstrate in a special way that Jesus is truly ‘God who saves.’ ”
Marriage: I do not believe there are any direct references to marriage in the resurrection appearances of Jesus. However, St. Paul speaks to the sacramental nature of marriage in Ephesians 5 by stating that husbands should love their wives as Christ loved the Church (“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church. . . . This is a great mystery, and I mean in reference to Christ and the Church” – Eph 5:25, 32); and during his earthly ministry no one spoke more strongly about the divine origin of marriage, as well as its indissolubility, than Jesus (see Matt. 19: 3-10). The power flowing from Jesus’ resurrection is therefore the catalyst for life-long sacramental marriage between a man and a woman (“By coming to restore the original order of creation disturbed by sin, [Jesus] himself gives the strength and grace to live marriage in the new dimension of the Reign of God” – CCC 1615).
9. Jesus’ wounds are a special manifestation of his resurrection
One of the most fascinating aspects of Jesus’ resurrection is the existence of wounds of crucifixion on his resurrected body (see John 20: 20). We are all familiar with the apostle Thomas being invited by the resurrected Jesus to touch his wounds (John 20:27). And at Luke 24: 36-41 Jesus appeared to his disciples saying “Peace to you.” But Luke recounts that the apostles “were startled and frightened, and supposed they that they saw a spirit.” Jesus then said: “Why are you troubled, and why do questionings arise in your hearts? See my hands and feet , that it is I myself; handle me; and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have.” The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible relates that Jesus’ reference to his hands and feet in this passage pertains to “the nail marks” which “demonstrate that Jesus’ risen body is the same body that was crucified only days earlier. He carries these marks of his earthly sacrifice with him when he ascends into heaven (Rev. 5:5).”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:
“By means of touch and the sharing of a meal, the risen Jesus establishes direct contact with his disciples. He invites them in this way to recognize that he is not a ghost and above all to verify that the risen body in which he appears to them is the same body that had been tortured and crucified, for it still bears the traces of his Passion. Yet at the same time this authentic, real body possesses the new properties of a glorious body: not limited by space and time but able to be present how and when he wills; for Christ’s humanity can no longer be confined to earth, and belongs henceforth only to the Father’s divine realm” (no. 645).
The spiritual lesson here is that Jesus, even in his resurrected body, never wants us to forget how much he suffered in order to prove his love for us and secure our salvation. As a gifted spiritual writer once said, let us never forget the sufferings of the Lord. Father Faber adds: “O for some corner, the least, the lowest, and the last in the world to come [Heaven], where we may spend an untired eternity in giving silent thanks to Jesus Crucified!”
A wonderful reflection on our Lord’s glorious wounds, building on the thoughts of Saint Thomas Aquinas, can be accessed via the following link:
10. Jesus reestablished Peter as head of the Church during one of his resurrection appearances
In one of the most beautiful of his resurrection appearances, Jesus appeared to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias (John 21: 1-25), “and none of the disciples dared ask him, ‘Who are you?’ They knew it was the lord’” (John 21: 12-13). And they ate breakfast together, utilizing a charcoal fire (John 21: 9). Here, again, we see Jesus hard at work building up his apostles to ready them for the demanding work of evangelization. In this instance, Jesus directed his comments to Peter, stating:
“Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.” Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.” The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my sheep. Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!” (John 21: 15-19)
Peter had previously stood by a charcoal fire in John 18 when he denied Jesus three times. Now, in the presence of another charcoal fire, and in order to restore and reaffirm Peter as head of his Church, Jesus leads Peter to express love for Jesus three times. Each of these three times Jesus implores Peter to take care of his sheep, and on the third time Jesus alludes to Peter’s manner of death, where Peter will “stretch out [his] hands” on a cross in imitation of Jesus.
.CONCLUSION:
Jesus is the resurrection and the life. All power in heaven and earth has been given to him (Matthew 28:18). “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which [God] has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way” (Ephesians 1: 18-23).
The historical authenticity of the resurrection of Jesus’ body from the dead is well proven by the Gospel writers, especially by the numerous accounts they provide of Jesus’ resurrection appearances, and the subsequent witness of the apostles shows they were fully convinced that Jesus had risen from the dead. Indeed, almost all of these apostles went on to convincingly confirm that they witnessed the resurrected Jesus with the witness – the Greek word “martyr” literally means witness – of their own lives, which is a most powerful testimony. Moreover, Jesus demonstrates by his resurrection his great concern for the Church – this by establishing the Sacrament of Confession during one appearance, and by reaffirming Peter as head of the Church on another, and by the retention of his sacred and glorious wounds on his resurrected body in order to remind us that by “his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24). Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, is the source of all good things for us! Gather in for your eternal welfare the incredible “POWER flowing from his resurrection” (Phil 3:10).
Thomas L. Mulcahy, M.A.
References: I see the use of Father Faber phraseology in the first reflection, such as will “increase the temperature of your love,” and will do a “good work in your soul,” and make it the “special object” of your prayer or meditation, and we are “in need of power.” The tone and content of the first reflection is certainly under the influence of Faber who often states that in our earthly condition we could not tolerate the torrents of Heavenly joy. The second reflection originates from Dr. Scott Hahn’s tape series on the resurrection, where he places a special emphasis on the resurrection as a saving event, with special reliance on F.X. Durwell’s works on the resurrection.
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A great spiritual writer (Father Lallemant) tells us that “the spirit of devotion is the mainspring of the spiritual life, and consists in keeping the heart always united to God or to our Lord Jesus Christ.” One proven way to increase our devotion to Jesus is through devotion to his Passion. As Saint Francis de Sales says in Introduction to the Devout Life : “I commend earnest mental prayer, especially on the Life and Passion of the Lord. If you contemplate Him frequently in meditation, your whole soul will be filled with him, and you will grow in His likeness and your actions will be molded by Him.”
In this short note our guide will be Saint Paul of the Cross, founder of the Passionists, a priest who spent his entire life preaching about the tremendous fruits associated with devotion to the Passion of Jesus Christ! Given the topic at hand, he is one of the best guides one could possibly pick. As one biography of this saint states, “it became his lifelong conviction that God is most easily found in the Passion of Christ.”
The following quotes, which form the substance of this note, are from the excellent book, Hunter of Souls: A Study of the Life and Spirit of St. Paul of the Cross by Father Edmund (the quotes in bold being the actual words of St. Paul of the Cross):
“It was only to be expected that Paul should strongly urge meditation upon the Sacred Passion…he insisted that the remembrance of the sufferings of Jesus Christ must always be kept in mind….”(p.200).
“You must never give up the remembrance of the most holy Passion of Jesus Christ and the imitation of His virtues. Rather, there is the gate that leads the soul to intimate union with God, to interior recollection, and to the most sublime contemplation” (p.200).
“To Paul, the Cross was not an emblem of suffering, but a sign of salvation, not a thing to be dreaded but something to be loved, for It was the symbol of an everlasting love….The Cross was the very breath of his soul” and “No man has so lively a feeling of the Passion of Christ as he who has happened to suffer such like things” (p. 204).
“When I still had my health, and was able to work for my neighbor’s salvation, my chief care was to make people meditate upon the sufferings of Jesus. I was struck by the fact that those who faithfully practiced this meditation changed their lives, even if they had been bandits or people of loose lives. After an interval I sometimes again encountered people whom I had advised to practice this devotion. When I then heard them in the tribunal of penance, in some cases at least, I could not find matter for absolution, so great was the change in their lives. When we think of a God who suffered for us, a God crowned with thorns, a God besmirched with spittle, and crucified for us – when we are penetrated day after day with these truths of faith, now is it possible for us still to offend God” (p. 213).
“Experience had proved to Paul that only daily meditation on the Passion could effect such permanent conversion. If a soul frequently recalled the sufferings of Our Lord, that soul would be faithful in keeping God’s law. Paul exerted every effort to promote the regular practice of this devotion” (p.213)
“During his last illness, Paul roused himself to say a few words to his visitors, recommending meditation on the Passion. To each one he gave a parting gift, a little crucifix to be a reminder of his last advice. Once he pointed to the figure of the cross, pleading in his eyes the words he could not speak: we must always keep in mind the sufferings of Our Lord” (p. 221, as edited).
CONCLUSION:
Saint Paul of the Cross died at age 80 in 1775 and was canonized in 1867. In her book, Miraculous Images ofOur Lord, Joann Carroll Cruz discusses a number of miraculous events associated with the cross used by Paul of the Cross when preaching (pp. 154-159), and Father Edmund relates other miraculous occurrences in the life of Paul including levitation and the signs of Christ’s passion being mystically imprinted on Paul’s heart “one Good Friday,” with resulting “rib displacement” confirmed by physical examination. Therefore, let us be confident that developing a spirit of devotion to our Lord’s Passion will deepen our love for Jesus Christ and our neighbor. Let us never forget the sufferings of Our Lord.
Tom Mulcahy, M.A.
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