Sacrament of Charity

As we struggle with the problems, difficulties and hardships of life, we need moments to rise above them and to feel that these negative feelings and events do not have any sway over our lives. It is the Resurrection of Jesus that gives us this sense of freedom, of hope and courage. Easter reminds us very strongly that Calvary is not the end of the road but the beginning of a new life. As St. Paul reminds us, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain; you are still in sins.”(1 Cor. 15:17).Easter is not just a memorial recollection of the Resurrection of Jesus but a reliving of the presence of Jesus daily in our lives. The words of Jesus addressed to the disciples at the time of the Ascension are always with us: “I am with you until the end of the world.”

With this hope in our hearts, we shall face the challenges and problems of our daily life. Sicknesses, financial disasters, personal failures, calumnious attacks will not have any power to take away the peace and joy from our lives as long as we believe in the eternally abiding presence of Jesus in our lives. As David Harrington has beautifully put it in his column in the magazine “America”: “Easter is not another spring festival…Rather, Easter means that physical death is not the end of us, that through Christ, life has conquered death and that we now enjoy a new creation inaugurated by the resurrection of Jesus and so a new way of looking at life (April12, 07, p.38.).”

We have also to mention in passing the importance of the Papal document “Sacramentum Caritatis”that came out just a few weeks ago. The Holy Father deals with the different aspects of the Eucharist, the central mystery of our faith, in this document. With regard to the Eucharistic celebration, the Holy Father adds that the Passover that Jesus celebrated was not only a “remembrance of the past but a prophetic remembrance---the proclamation of deliverance yet to come.” In Eucharist, he points out that Jesus “anticipates and makes present the sacrifice of the Cross and the victory of the Resurrection.”

The Apostolic Exhortation brings before our mind some of the important aspects of the Eucharistic celebration including the reverence and respect that are due to it. It points that all should “grasp ever more deeply the genuine meaning of the rites and liturgical texts and “that everything related to the Eucharist should be marked by beauty.”

Above all, the Exhortation points out the need for maintaining Eucharistic consistency which involves the consistency between our believing and acting. What more powerful a message can we have during this Easter season other than the following statement in the Exhortation: “Anyone who has not shared the truth of love with his brothers and sisters has not yet given enough.” Let this Easter season be another occasion for us to reawaken in us profound respect and love for our neighbor.