SAN DIEGO — Imagine if you were present at the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If you had watched as He emerged in glory from the tomb. If you saw Him encounter Mary Magdalene in the garden. If you had been with the apostles for that first moment when He appeared to them, turning their profound grief into incomparable joy.
The Gospels are our direct link with these magnificent events of faith and glory. Through the lens of the Gospels, we see that the Resurrection constituted the central turning point in human history. In the Resurrection, we have been redeemed. In the Resurrection, we understand that Our Lord Jesus Christ stands by us in every moment of our lives, supporting us, embracing us, challenging us and consoling us.
It is in the Resurrection that we come to understand that we live on this earth with a mission and a purpose that leads beyond this life to eternal glory with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And, most poignantly, it is in the Resurrection that we see that all those whom we have known and loved deeply on this earth are not gone from us forever, but live on with the Lord. We will embrace them once more in the Kingdom and treasure in them all of the qualities that we saw and knew and loved in them here in this world.
The ultimate reality of the Resurrection is that it teaches us that we are already citizens of Heaven, called to ennoble the world in which we live by striving to live out the values of the Gospel.
And, in that citizenship, we can truly rejoice!
