PASCHAL MESSAGE
CHRIST IS RISEN!
Saint Tugdual wrote: “…therein lies life; for life is incompatible with death, and if through the Lord Christ we share in his glorious Resurrection, we too have already been raised in him. We can only live by the Life of the One who lives forever and ever.”
On Easter morning, the empty tomb is not the witness of a mere man raised from the dead, like Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary (Jn 11:1-43), it is Christ, God and man, who rises in our humanity, and in all creatures, as a theophany as yet hidden. The beauty of spring and youth delight us, but an even greater beauty awaits manifestation within us, whatever our age or condition.
The Risen Christ is our own resurrection. Through baptism, we have been buried with Christ and also raised with Him (Col 2:12). We have become a new person through a new life if we accept to give ourselves to God as He gives Himself to us. The practice of the Christian life – the work of prayer, and the sacramental life – manifest the divine glory within us. This is what Saint Paul illustrates when he says: “All of us, with unveiled faces, reflecting as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed… from glory to glory…” (2 Cor 3:18).
The Resurrection of Christ can only truly be proclaimed to the world through the glory that is to be revealed progressively in man and through man in all things. This may seem too great or too vast to us in the light of our human frailty, yet the Apostle Paul assures us that the Light of Christ “has shone in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God” (2 Cor 4:6)
Whoever aspires to this glory never lacks divine grace. The world is unaware that it ardently desires this new life. Nevertheless, only a glorified heart can bring Christ to the world.
Marc – primate
Of the Celtic Orthodox Church
