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"Jesus
countered the arrogance of evil with the supremacy of
his love," declared Pope Benedict XVI in his to the City
and to the World (Urbi et Orbi) message telecast live
globally on Easter Sunday from the Vatican.
The following is the full text of the message;
Dear Brothers and Sisters throughout the world, Men and
women of good will!
Christ is risen! Peace to you! Today we celebrate the
great mystery, the foundation of Christian faith and
hope: Jesus of Nazareth, the Crucified One, has risen
from the dead on the third day according to the
Scriptures. We listen today with renewed emotion to the
announcement proclaimed by the angels on the dawn of the
first day after the Sabbath, to Mary of Magdala and to
the women at the sepulchre: “Why do you search among the
dead for one who is alive? He is not here, he is risen!”
(Lk 24:5-6).
It is not difficult to imagine the feelings of these
women at that moment: feelings of sadness and dismay at
the death of their Lord, feelings of disbelief and
amazement before a fact too astonishing to be true. But
the tomb was open and empty: the body was no longer
there. Peter and John, having been informed of this by
the women, ran to the sepulchre and found that they were
right. The faith of the Apostles in Jesus, the expected
Messiah, had been submitted to a severe trial by the
scandal of the cross. At his arrest, his condemnation
and death, they were dispersed. Now they are together
again, perplexed and bewildered. But the Risen One
himself comes in response to their thirst for greater
certainty. This encounter was not a dream or an illusion
or a subjective imagination; it was a real experience,
even if unexpected, and all the more striking for that
reason. “Jesus came and stood among them and said to
them, ‘peace be with you!’” (Jn 20:19).
At these words their faith, which was almost spent
within them, was re-kindled. The Apostles told Thomas
who had been absent from that first extraordinary
encounter: Yes, the Lord has fulfilled all that he
foretold; he is truly risen and we have seen and touched
him! Thomas however remained doubtful and perplexed.
When Jesus came for a second time, eight days later in
the Upper Room, he said to him: “put your finger here
and see my hands; and put out your hand and place it in
my side; do not be faithless, but believing!” The
Apostle’s response is a moving profession of faith: “My
Lord and my God!” (Jn 20:27-28).
“My Lord and my God!” We too renew that profession of
faith of Thomas. I have chosen these words for my Easter
greetings this year, because humanity today expects from
Christians a renewed witness to the resurrection of
Christ; it needs to encounter him and to know him as
true God and true man. If we can recognize in this
Apostle the doubts and uncertainties of so many
Christians today, the fears and disappointments of many
of our contemporaries, with him we can also rediscover
with renewed conviction, faith in Christ dead and risen
for us. This faith, handed down through the centuries by
the successors of the Apostles, continues on because the
Risen Lord dies no more. He lives in the Church and
guides it firmly towards the fulfilment of his eternal
design of salvation.
We may all be tempted by the disbelief of Thomas.
Suffering, evil, injustice, death, especially when it
strikes the innocent such as children who are victims of
war and terrorism, of sickness and hunger, does not all
of this put our faith to the test? Paradoxically the
disbelief of Thomas is most valuable to us in these
cases because it helps to purify all false concepts of
God and leads us to discover his true face: the face of
a God who, in Christ, has taken upon himself the wounds
of injured humanity. Thomas has received from the Lord,
and has in turn transmitted to the Church, the gift of a
faith put to the test by the passion and death of Jesus
and confirmed by meeting him risen. His faith was almost
dead but was born again thanks to his touching the
wounds of Christ, those wounds that the Risen One did
not hide but showed, and continues to point out to us in
the trials and sufferings of every human being.
“By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Pt 2:24). This
is the message Peter addressed to the early converts.
Those wounds that, in the beginning were an obstacle for
Thomas’s faith, being a sign of Jesus’ apparent failure,
those same wounds have become in his encounter with the
Risen One, signs of a victorious love. These wounds that
Christ has received for love of us help us to understand
who God is and to repeat: “My Lord and my God!” Only a
God who loves us to the extent of taking upon himself
our wounds and our pain, especially innocent suffering,
is worthy of faith.
How many wounds, how much suffering there is in the
world! Natural calamities and human tragedies that cause
innumerable victims and enormous material destruction
are not lacking. My thoughts go to recent events in
Madagascar, in the Solomon Islands, in Latin America and
in other regions of the world. I am thinking of the
scourge of hunger, of incurable diseases, of terrorism
and kidnapping of people, of the thousand faces of
violence which some people attempt to justify in the
name of religion, of contempt for life, of the violation
of human rights and the exploitation of persons. I look
with apprehension at the conditions prevailing in
several regions of Africa. In Darfur and in the
neighbouring countries there is a catastrophic, and
sadly to say underestimated, humanitarian situation. In
Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo the
violence and looting of the past weeks raises fears for
the future of the Congolese democratic process and the
reconstruction of the country. In Somalia the renewed
fighting has driven away the prospect of peace and
worsened a regional crisis, especially with regard to
the displacement of populations and the traffic of arms.
Zimbabwe is in the grip of a grievous crisis and for
this reason the Bishops of that country in a recent
document indicated prayer and a shared commitment for
the common good as the only way forward.
Likewise the population of East Timor stands in need of
reconciliation and peace as it prepares to hold
important elections. Elsewhere too, peace is sorely
needed: in Sri Lanka only a negotiated solution can put
an end to the conflict that causes so much bloodshed;
Afghanistan is marked by growing unrest and instability;
In the Middle East, besides some signs of hope in the
dialogue between Israel and the Palestinian authority,
nothing positive comes from Iraq, torn apart by
continual slaughter as the civil population flees. In
Lebanon the paralysis of the country’s political
institutions threatens the role that the country is
called to play in the Middle East and puts its future
seriously in jeopardy. Finally, I cannot forget the
difficulties faced daily by the Christian communities
and the exodus of Christians from that blessed Land
which is the cradle of our faith. I affectionately renew
to these populations the expression of my spiritual
closeness.
Dear Brothers and sisters, through the wounds of the
Risen Christ we can see the evils which afflict humanity
with the eyes of hope. In fact, by his rising the Lord
has not taken away suffering and evil from the world but
has vanquished them at their roots by the superabundance
of his grace. He has countered the arrogance of evil
with the supremacy of his love. He has left us the love
that does not fear death, as the way to peace and joy.
“Even as I have loved you – he said to his disciples
before his death – so you must also love one another”
(cf. Jn 13:34).
Brothers and sisters in faith, who are listening to me
from every part of the world! Christ is risen and he is
alive among us. It is he who is the hope of a better
future. As we say with Thomas: “My Lord and my God!”,
may we hear again in our hearts the beautiful yet
demanding words of the Lord: “If any one serves me, he
must follow me; and where I am, there shall my servant
be also; if any one serves me, the Father will honour
him” (Jn 12:26). United to him and ready to offer our
lives for our brothers (cf. 1 Jn 3:16), let us become
apostles of peace, messengers of a joy that does not
fear pain – the joy of the Resurrection. May Mary,
Mother of the Risen Christ, obtain for us this Easter
gift. Happy Easter to you all. |
