Jesus—Easter & Resurrection (Last updated: 13th November 2019)
Top Quotes
- “Resurrection is the greatest mutation… a qualitative leap in the history of evolution.” (Pope Benedict XVI)
- “The resurrection of Jesus was God’s confirmation that the God-whose-passion-is-compassion… is, indeed, the true God.” (Fr Peter McVerry)
- “Jesus was persecuted and executed for preaching his vision for the Kingdom of God.” (Fr Peter McVerry)
- “What does it mean that Jesus is risen? It means that the love of God is stronger than evil and death itself; it means that the love of God can transform our lives and let those desert places in our hearts bloom….
let us be loved by Jesus, let us enable the power of his love to transform our lives too; and let us become agents of this mercy, channels through which God can water the earth.” (Pope Francis) - “The central Christian belief is that Christ’s death has somehow put us right with God and gives us a fresh start.” (CS Lewis)
- “Christianity is the announcement to the world of the death of death…. The central message of Christianity is about hope beyond human imagining…. that, once in history, 2,000 years ago, God came to earth as a man to demonstrate that death is a myth born of the limited human imagination.” (John Waters)
- “In Christ, we too have risen, passing from death to life, from the slavery of sin to the freedom of love.” (Pope Francis)
- “Jesus ‘is’ risen, not ‘will be’ risen…. We too can ask for Jesus’ help to be resurrected daily. On waking, ask for resurrection of some part of our lives… Go through the process.” (Fr Eamon Devlin)
- “Contemplating Jesus on the Cross we see love in its most radical form. We can begin to imagine the path of love along which we must move. The opportunities to make this journey are abundant. Look about you with Christ’s eyes, listen with his ears, feel and think with his heart and mind. Are you ready to give all as he did for truth and justice?” (Pope Benedict XVI)
- “Christ’s passion urges us to take upon our own shoulders the sufferings of the world, in the certainty that God is not distant or far removed from man and his troubles.” (Pope Benedict XVI)
- “It is for all people and with all people that he carries the cross to Calvary, and it is there that for all of us he is nailed to his cross.” (Pope John-Paul II)
- “He dies the death of a criminal, the most humiliating death known to the world at that time. That is why to those in our century who carry terrible burdens he is able to say: ‘Come to me! I am your Brother in suffering. There is no humiliation or bitterness which I do not know!’” (Pope John-Paul II)
- “Holy Week is a time of grace which the Lord gives us
to open the doors of our heart, of our life, of our parishes,
of the movements, of the associations;
and “to come out” in order to meet others, to make ourselves close,
to bring them the light and joy of our faith.
To come out always!
And to do so with God’s love and tenderness, with respect and with patience,
knowing that God takes our hands, our feet, our heart,
and guides them and makes all our actions fruitful.” (Pope Francis)
Full Quotes:
Jesus—Easter & Resurrection:
“Resurrection is the greatest mutation… a qualitative leap in the history of evolution.”
— Pope Benedict XVI, Holy Saturday 2006 Easter message
“The resurrection of Jesus was God’s confirmation that the God-whose-passion-is-compassion, whom Jesus revealed in his own deeds and words, is, indeed, the true God.”
— Fr Peter McVerry, SJ, page 67 of his book ‘Jesus: Social Revolutionary?’, Veritas Publications, Dublin, 2008
“Jesus was persecuted and executed for preaching his vision for the Kingdom of God.”
— Fr Peter McVerry, SJ, page 115 of his book ‘Jesus: Social Revolutionary?’, Veritas Publications, Dublin, 2008
“Dear brothers and sisters in Rome and throughout the world, Happy Easter! Happy Easter!
What a joy it is for me to announce this message: Christ is risen! I would like it to go out to every house and every family, especially where the suffering is greatest, in hospitals, in prisons …
Most of all, I would like it to enter every heart, for it is there that God wants to sow this Good News: Jesus is risen, there is hope for you, you are no longer in the power of sin, of evil! Love has triumphed, mercy has been victorious!….
What does it mean that Jesus is risen? It means that the love of God is stronger than evil and death itself; it means that the love of God can transform our lives and let those desert places in our hearts bloom. The love God can do this!
This same love for which the Son of God became man and followed the way of humility and self-giving to the very end, down to hell — to the abyss of separation from God — this same merciful love has flooded with light the dead body of Jesus, has transfigured it, has made it pass into eternal life. Jesus did not return to his former life, to earthly life, but entered into the glorious life of God and he entered there with our humanity, opening us to a future of hope….
Dear brothers and sisters, Christ died and rose once for all, and for everyone, but the power of the Resurrection, this passover from slavery to evil to the freedom of goodness, must be accomplished in every age, in our concrete existence, in our everyday lives. How many deserts, even today, do human beings need to cross! Above all, the desert within, when we have no love for God or neighbour, when we fail to realize that we are guardians of all that the Creator has given us and continues to give us. God’s mercy can make even the driest land become a garden….
So this is the invitation which I address to everyone: Let us accept the grace of Christ’s Resurrection! Let us be renewed by God’s mercy, let us be loved by Jesus, let us enable the power of his love to transform our lives too; and let us become agents of this mercy, channels through which God can water the earth, protect all creation and make justice and peace flourish….
Bear in your families and in your countries the message of joy, hope and peace which every year, on this day, is powerfully renewed.
May the risen Lord, the conqueror of sin and death, be a support to you all, especially to the weakest and neediest. Thank you for your presence and for the witness of your faith. … To all of you I affectionately say again: may the risen Christ guide all of you and the whole of humanity on the paths of justice, love and peace.”
— Pope Francis I, in his first Easter Sunday “Urbi and Orbi” message, 31 March 2013
“The central Christian belief is that Christ’s death has somehow put us right with God and gives us a fresh start. Theories as to how it did this are another matter. A man can eat his dinner without understanding exactly how food nourishes him. A man can accept what Christ has done without knowing how it works: indeed he certainly would not know how it works until he has accepted it.
We are told that Christ was killed for us, that his death washes away our sins, and that by dying he disabled death itself. That is the formula. That is Christianity. That is what has to be believed. Any theories we build up as to how Christ’s death did this are, in my view, quite secondary: mere plans or diagrams to be left alone if they do not help us, and, even if they do help us, not to be confused with the thing itself.”
— CS Lewis
“A couple of years ago, talking to a Puertan Rican monsignor with an acute gift for simplicity, I found myself embarrassedly asking if he could explain to me the core meaning of Christianity. He urged me not to feel bad, since about 95 percent of Christians do not understand Christianity either….
On the evening of that first Good Friday, he went on, this is how it was with Jesus. But then, forty hours later, something happened that would change everything. Jesus came back to life. Let us be clear, he emphasised, Jesus began to breathe again, grew warm, started to move, re-engaged with reality, became interested in things around Him. Having been dead, He became, once again, as alive as we are.
This, the monsignor told me, is both the meaning of the Resurrection and the central idea of Christianity: that death has no dominion, that beyond the end there is a new beginning. Christianity, he said, is the announcement to the world of the death of death…. In a life spent in Catholic churches and schools, reading Catholic periodicals, nobody had ever succeeded in communicating to me that the central message of Christianity is about hope beyond human imagining.
…. In its constant reiteration of rules, the Catholic Church in Ireland has seemed to forget that there is a need to tell people why, rather than out of blind obedience and some weird desire to be told how to live their lives, they might want to listen to its message. Very often those who are the voices of the Church fail to emphasise the most important part: that, once in history, 2,000 years ago, God came to earth as a man to demonstrate that death is a myth born of the limited human imagination.”
— John Waters, in ‘Beyond Consolation: Or How We Became Too Clever For God… and Our Own Good’, 2010
“With the ancient liturgical Easter Sequence, in these days we repeat: “Christ, my hope, is risen!”. And in Him, we too have risen, passing from death to life, from the slavery of sin to the freedom of love. Thus, let us allow ourselves to be touched by the consoling message of Easter and embraced by its glorious light, which dispels the darkness of fear and sorrow.”
— Pope Francis, in his Regina Coeli address, Easter Monday, April 22 2019
“For most, it seems, resurrection is just about the future. If so, they miss the point.
Jesus ‘is’ risen, not ‘will be’ risen.
We too can ask for Jesus’ help to be resurrected daily. On waking, ask for resurrection of some part of our lives. Each of us are different: it might be a relationship with a family member, for example.
Go through the process.
- On Holy Thursday Jesus put thoughts on his prayers.
- On Good Friday he put it into action, into deeds.
- On Saturday, so often overlooked, he was entombed. Resurrection does not happen instantly.
- On Easter Sunday he rose.”
— Fr Eamon Devlin, CM, 2010 Easter talk, St. Peter’s Church, Phibsboro, Dublin
“Contemplating Jesus on the Cross we see love in its most radical form. We can begin to imagine the path of love along which we must move (cf. Deus Caritas Est, 12). The opportunities to make this journey are abundant. Look about you with Christ’s eyes, listen with his ears, feel and think with his heart and mind. Are you ready to give all as he did for truth and justice?”
— Pope Benedict XVI, talk to young people in Yonkers, New York, USA, April 19 2008
“Christ’s passion urges us to take upon our own shoulders the sufferings of the world, in the certainty that God is not distant or far removed from man and his troubles. On the contrary, he became one of us “in order to suffer with man in an utterly real way — in flesh and blood … hence in all human suffering we are joined by one who experiences and carries that suffering with us.”
— Pope Benedict XVI in his Encyclical Letter ‘Spe Salvi’ (40)
“Peter, in his First Letter, reminds Christians that they were ransomed at a great price: that of the blood of Christ (cf. 1 Pet 1:18-19). Those who look at their lives from this perspective know that Christ’s love can only be met with love. That is what the Pope is asking you to do in this farewell: to respond in love to the One who for love gave himself up for us.”
— Pope Benedict XVI, Meeting With World Youth Day volunteers in Madrid, 21st August 2011
“Christ himself carried a burden, and his burden—the cross—was made heavier by the sins of us all. But Christ did not avoid the cross; he accepted it and carried it willingly. Moreover, he now stands beside those weighed down by trials and persecutions, remaining beside them to the end. It is for all people and with all people that he carries the cross to Calvary, and it is there that for all of us he is nailed to his cross. He dies the death of a criminal, the most humiliating death known to the world at that time. That is why to those in our century who carry terrible burdens he is able to say: ‘Come to me! I am your Brother in suffering. There is no humiliation or bitterness which I do not know!’
— Pope John-Paul II, ‘Homily at Aqueduct Racetrack’ 1995 (as quoted in ‘John Paul II: In My Own Words’, 1998, London: Hodder & Stoughton, page 5)
“In Holy Week Jesus gives himself without reserve,
he keeps nothing for himself, not even life.
At the Last Supper, with his friends, he breaks the bread and passes the cup round “for us.”
The Son of God offers himself to us, he puts his Body and his Blood into our hands,
so as to be with us always, to dwell among us.
And in the Garden of Olives, and likewise in the trial before Pilate,
he puts up no resistance, he gives himself;
… He does not of course conceal his deep human distress as he faces a violent death,
but with absolute trust commends himself to the Father.
Jesus gave himself up to death voluntarily in order to reciprocate the love of God the Father,
in perfect union with his will, to demonstrate his love for us….
What is the meaning of all this for us?
It means that this is my, your and our road too.
Living Holy Week, following Jesus not only with the emotion of the heart;
living Holy Week, following Jesus means learning to come out of ourselves—as I said last Sunday—in order to go to meet others,
to go toward the outskirts of existence, to be the first to take a step toward our brothers and our sisters,
especially those who are the most distant, those who are forgotten, those who are most in need of understanding, comfort and help.
There is such a great need to bring the living presence of Jesus, merciful and full of love!
Living Holy Week means entering ever more deeply into the logic of God, into the logic of the Cross, which is not primarily that of suffering and death, but rather that of love and of the gift of self which brings life.
It means entering into the logic of the Gospel.
Following and accompanying Christ, staying with him, demands “coming out of ourselves,” requires us to be outgoing;
to come out of ourselves, out of a dreary way of living faith that has become a habit, out of the temptation to withdraw into our own plans which end by shutting out God’s creative action….
Nor must we be satisfied with staying in the pen of the ninety-nine sheep
if we want to follow him and to remain with him;
we too must “go out” with him to seek the lost sheep,
the one that has strayed the furthest.
Be sure to remember: coming out of ourselves,
just as Jesus, just as God came out of himself in Jesus
and Jesus came out of himself for all of us….
Holy Week is a time of grace which the Lord gives us
to open the doors of our heart, of our life, of our parishes—
what a pity so many parishes are closed!
—of the movements, of the associations;
and “to come out” in order to meet others, to make ourselves close,
to bring them the light and joy of our faith.
To come out always!
And to do so with God’s love and tenderness, with respect and with patience,
knowing that God takes our hands, our feet, our heart,
and guides them and makes all our actions fruitful.”
— Pope Francis I, at his first ‘General Audience’, St Peter’s Square, March 27th 2013
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