[B.] St. IGNATIUS of LOYOLA Presentation: The ... - St. Gaspar Bertoni

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d. For this reason, the Resurrection of Jesus is the most patent manifestation of
God’s love and fidelity in human history. The Resurrection represents not only God’s decisive
action, but also His eschatological self-revelation. In the resurrection, there is revealed in a
definitive and insuperable manner just who God is: He is the One Whose power transcends both
life and death, being and non-being, He is creative love and fidelity, the power of new life, the
One in Whom all may confide in an unconditional manner, even when all their human possibilities
have trickled away. The Resurrection of Jesus is the revelation and the realization of God’s
Reign announced by Jesus. In the Resurrection of Jesus from among the dead God has
manifested His fidelity in love and identified definitively with Jesus and His cause. Jesus does not
remain among the dead, but He lives. In this manner, there appears in him that definitive and
ultimate significance of all things. With Him there have been inaugurated the eschatological
happenings. He is the Lord of life and death, the first of all the risen.
e. On the part of the divine initiative, there exists the self-manifestation of His divine
glory. However, in order for this to be an eschatolgical event in the Spirit, there is needed on the
part of Paschal Faith that clear evidence of love, which makes possible that total abandonment
into the hands of a God who disposes of possibilities far beyond that evident in the present
reality, even beyond life and death. In the biblical text, those that do not “understand” this realty
there is the implication that there is likewise a total lack of preparation for this event. This would
imply a radical ignorance, the absence of interior communion, which would be necessary in order
to grasp the object.
f. The Resurrection of Jesus for Jn’s Gospel, is a mystery from ‘on high’ which
humanity, the ‘flesh’, cannot know, nor grasp unless one is reborn of the Holy Spirit [cf. Jn 3:5].
The closeness of the Risen One, through which the Father’s fidelity and love are made quite
evident, now illumine the eyes of the heart to “see” the Lord. This is a faith that is not possessive,
but quite humble and regulated by love that opens up pleasantly into human history toward an
eschatological future with God, in the mystery of the Risen One [cf. Jn 29:17, ff.].
1.] In the resurrection story, it has been noted that Mary Magdalene’s
attempt to ”cling” to the Risen One is still a terrestrial faith, and such faith never contented Jesus.
It was necessary for Mary - as it always is for the Church - to live a renewed paschal faith,
renewed radically from on high. Mary’s initial understanding was that Jesus’ resurrection was
simply Christ returning to all that was before: she held him fast, and did not want to let Him go [cf.
Sgs 3:4].
2.] However, Jesus had not risen from the tomb merely to pick up again all
that had been terminated with His death. He is now in a totally new “condition” [cf. 8:23], from
above, now with all His being Mary’s well-intentioned gesture does not correspond to this new
reality of the Resurrection. She “allows” Jesus to escape from her hands at the precise moment
that He calls her by name. Her profession of paschal faith: “Jesus has risen!” no longer
pretends to hold that Jesus has simply returned to His previous earthly condition, that He gave up
as a redemptive oblation to the Father as he ex-spired on the Cross.
3.] From all this, the fervent believer is being called to base all of the rest
of one’s life on the mystery of the Paschal Mystery of Jesus - His life and death, His
Resurrection and Ascension. This kind of decisive recognition can only be perceived departing
from the activity of the Holy Spirit which is Love Itself which is communicated, and thus forces
open the eyes of faith - as the travelers to Emmaus had their eyes “opened” in the breaking of the
two-fold table of the Lord’s Word [cf. Lk 24:31, f.]. The believers come to see and believe through
the understanding of God’s Word and the perception of the Risen One in the Meal blessed by
the Lord - He, Who is here with us now, in the eternal presence of God.