Life is Triumphant

The following is a reflection from Fr. Bede Jarrett, OP. Fr. Jarrett from England is widely esteemed for his preaching, his lectures, and his many books on theology and spirituality.

We celebrate the triumph of our blessed Lord over death. Man has and shall vanquish and conquer many enemies; the only enemy he can never conquer is death. Yet even death, through the triumph of our blessed Lord, is to be finally conquered, not only his death, but ours. He is a conqueror of death because he can make each of us, if we will, also conquerors. It is thus that he has taken the horror out of death. He has made it something no longer to scare people, but to encourage them. It is no longer a ruin but a sacrifice that every soul can make. Each man dying is a priest, and can offer a sacrifice like his Master. Each, like his Master, is victim and priest beside. He can offer himself in memory of that offering Christ made; offer it undefeated even by death.

Again, for us, death is not the end of the roadway. It is only a turn in the road. We hold it not as though it were the journey’s end. The journey ends not in death, but in life. Indeed, the journey has no ending…. Thus did Christ our Lord vanquish death. He taught us how to vanquish it by not being afraid to die. And death being vanquished, what other evil can we ever
really fear? Death, the long-unconquered foe of man, God made Man has conquered for himself and all the world. It is because of that…because death has been met and answered, that every Christian soul should know that there is nothing that cannot be firmly and properly dealt with. No problem can utterly be insoluble. There is a remedy for all things. To all things there is an end. Men talk, and rightly, I suppose, of the problems of our time, and wonder how they are to be solved and dealt with. In consequence, people looking out into the future are a little afraid. How is this problem to be solved, they ask? What is to be the end of that? Now it is part of the spirit of the followers of Christ never to be afraid of the future, or of whatever the future may bring. There are dark clouds and difficulties beyond us always. Yet there must always be victory for good, for the good is God. God is triumphant. Life is triumphant. Every lesser thing shall fail.

Happy Easter! Christ has risen, alleluia