by Father Michael McGarry, CSP
March 30, 2013

Easter. Once-a-year churchgoers gather with monthly churchgoers who are welcomed by weekly churchgoers. Easter is for Christians just about the most “Church-going” day of the year.

And why not? It’s the day that marks and celebrates that most fundamental of Christian anchors: life. We Christians gather together, and around the Pierced One, who was “crucified, died and was buried,” now resplendent in the life of his resurrected body. That’s the Easter connection: life and flesh. John Updike put it more poetically:

Make no mistake: if he rose at all…
It was not as the flowers,
Each soft spring recurrent;
It was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the
Eleven apostles;
It was as His flesh; ours.
– from Seven Stanzas at Easter by John Updike

For Christians do not believe in life after death. We’re not “on hold” until the real thing comes around. Our Easter faith shouts out that we simply believe in life.

But do you see the evidence, do you see the reflection, do you see infallible proof? Do you see it in the life of Christians about you?

Or, more telling, do you see it in yourself?

That is, if we believe in Christ’s resurrection, then we don’t simply affirm life, we practice resurrection.

My now-deceased Paulist friend Jim Moran used to put it more memorably: “If you believe in resurrection, inform your face!”

Yes, the face of our Church, our face needs to be informed and re-rooted each Easter: we are the community that believes in life, in resurrection. Just look at our face!

Dare we say that? Dare we live that? And no matter how often we go to Church, grounded in this great Easter Season, we contribute to others’ meeting the Resurrected One.

May the abundant graces of this Easter possess you and those you love.

Father Michael B. McGarry, CSP, serves as president of the Paulist Fathers.