Easter and the journey of life

"Being Christian is a journey, or better: It is a pilgrimage, it is a going with Jesus Christ, a going in that direction that he has pointed out to us and is pointing out to us."

Pope Benedict said these words on this year's Palm Sunday. The Pope affirmed that the theme of Palm Sunday is "following," walking the way of Jesus Christ "as that way that leads to the goal, to a humanity that is fully realized and authentic."

These words of the Pope at the beginning of this year's Holy Week prepare us to look at this week's celebrations as a unique way of walking the journey of life with Jesus.

This week's celebrations leading up to Easter teach us that we never walk alone. Christ leads us "to love -- he leads us to God. ... He is the God whom deep down all men seek and whom they all have knowledge of in some way. ... The infinite God is at the same time the God who is near. He, who cannot be enclosed in any building, nevertheless wants to live among us, be completely with us. ... Following Christ demands as a first step the reawakening of the nostalgia for being authentically human and thus the reawakening for God."

Only those who intensely lived Lent can celebrate Easter. Without that preparation, Easter is reduced to a one dimensional and shallow social occasion. Easter cannot be understood if it is divorced from the passion and death of Jesus Christ. Those who do not look at the Cross as the eloquent symbol of the love of God for humanity cannot fathom the depth of the Easter mystery.

On Good Friday the cross is seen through Jesus' cry before he died: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Many times, we feel this cry and make it our 'own'. In difficult situations of life, which can cause very profound desolation, create worry and uncertainties we cry to God and ask Him, "Why have you forsaken me." In moments of loneliness and distress, which are frequent in our life, the exclamation, 'The Lord has abandoned me!' might surge up in the believer's spirit.

We utter the same cry collectively when natural or other disasters strike as or strike whole nations. We uttered that cry when Haiti was struck by a deadly earthquake.

In such situations, Christ's Passion offers a new key to understanding. In his Passion, Death and Resurrection, Jesus reveals to us that the final word on human existence is not death, but God's victory over death. It was so in the experience of Jesus and it can be so in the experience of every believer.

The experience of the Holy Week reminds us all that Christ died for each man and each woman, because the gift of salvation is universal. The Church reflects the face of a crucified God, which does not inspire fear, but communicates only love and mercy.

It is not possible to remain indifferent in face of Christ's sacrifice! In the spirits of those who take time to contemplate the Lord's Passion, sentiments of profound gratitude rise up spontaneously. In spiritually climbing Calvary with Him, we can experience a certain sense of light and joy that emanates from the Resurrection.

Those of us who seriously experience the spirit of Holy Thursday and Good Friday will realise the inseparable continuity that exists between the Passion and the Resurrection. Christ's death carries in itself the seed of the Resurrection.

On Holy Thursday we commemorate and re-live the setting up of the institution of the priesthood as a gift and mystery of love. We also re-enact the setting up of the Eucharist as the sacrament of God's infinite love for humanity.

On Good Friday during the celebration of the liturgy and the reading of the narration of the Passion, we are invited to venerate the Cross as the extraordinary symbol of divine mercy.

As believers, we look at the Crucifix as the only way that gives meaning to human existence. It is the way of total acceptance of the Will of God, and of generous giving of ourselves to our brothers and sisters.

The Church exhorts us to live Holy Saturday as the day of the great silence. This silence was broken late last night during the Easter Vigil when we joyfully proclaim Easter and celebrate Jesus' triumph over death, flooding our hearts and minds with joy.

Easter, understood in this perspective, stops being a commemoration of the past but becomes a commitment and a life programme. It is only then that Easter can become a Happy Easter!