Easter Address delivered on April 25, 1943 - Archbishop Fulton Sheen

[Michael]

Easter
 
 Address delivered on April 25, 1943, by Msgr. Fulton Sheen

The supreme instance of all history that the voice of the people is not necessarily the voice of God, was the moment when a mob passed beneath a cross, flinging at the helpless figure there upon it the blistering sneer of the ages: "He trusted in God; let him now deliver him" (Matthew 27:43).

Two days later, early in the morning, a converted sinner is found walking in a cemetery — she whose heart had been captured by Him without, as other men had done, laying it waste. She was in search of a tomb and a dead body which she hoped she might anoint with spices. The idea of the Resurrection did not seem to enter her mind — she who herself had risen from a tomb sealed by the seven devils of sin. Finding the tomb empty she broke again into a fountain of tears. No one who weeps ever looks upwards. With her eyes cast down as the brightness of the early sunrise swept over the dew-covered grass, she vaguely perceived someone near her, who asked: "Woman, why weepest thou?" (John 20:15).

Mary, thinking it might have been the gardener said: "Because they have taken away my Lord; and I do not know where they have laid him."

The figure before her spoke only one word, one name, and in a tone so sweet and ineffably tender that it could be the only unforgettable voice of the world; and that one word was: "Mary."

No one could ever say "Mary" as He said it. In that moment she knew Him. Dropping into the Aramaic of her mother’s speech she answered but one word: "Rabboni"! "Master"! And she fell at His feet— she was always there, anointing them at a supper, standing before them at a Cross, and now kneeling before Him in the Glory of an Easter morn.

The Cross had asked the questions; the Resurrection had answered them. The Cross had asked the question: How far can Power go in the world?. The Resurrection answered: Power ends in its own destruction, for those who slew the foe lost the day.

The Cross had asked: Why does God permit evil and sin to nail Justice to a tree? The Resurrection answered: That sin, having done its worst, might exhaust itself and thus be overcome by Love that is stronger than either sin or death.

Thus there emerges the Easter lesson that the power of evil and the chaos of any one moment can be defied and conquered, for the basis of our hope is not in any construct of human power, but in the Power of God Who has given to the evil of this earth its one mortal wound — an open tomb, a gaping sepulchre, an empty grave.

If the story of Christ ended with that cry of abandonment on the Cross, then what hope have we that bruised Goodness and crucified Justice will ever rise triumphant over the massed wickedness of men?

If He Who died to give us the glorious liberty of the children of God could not break the chains of death, then what hope is there that the enslaved peoples of Europe will ever rise from the slavery of their graves to a freedom where a man can call his soul his own?

If there be no Power of God that can raise to the newness of life Him Who said, "I am the light of the world," then in broken-hearted misery must we say to our soldiers: "Out, out brief candle" — there shall be no light again.

If there be no Power of God to bring back to life the Redeemer of our sins, the Teacher of our minds, then the pathos of man’s mortality is deepened and the riddle of human existence darkened forever, as the prison doors of death are everlastingly shut by the Jailer whose name is Black Despair.

You say the Resurrection contradicts science and human experience; I say to you that the rotting in the grave of Supreme Truth would contradict it a thousand times more.

I can accept a universe where Goodness is crucified by Power, but I cannot accept one where there is no higher Power to raise it to justification. I can accept a world where Evil has its hour, where a Poland suffers from her enemies, where Jews and Christians are exiled, where the Cross is double-crossed by a swastika, where 40,000 churches are closed because religion is the opium of the people — but I cannot accept a world wherein Goodness does not have its Easter Day to sing triumphant on the wings of victory.

Apply this Easter lesson to the Dark Hour in which we live. Whence shall come our hope of victory? Whence shall come our hope for peace? Whence shall come our hope for the Church?

Our hope for victory in this war must not be in the power of arms alone, for the enemy has the Devil on his side, and guns, planes, tanks, and shells are no match for Demons. As Isaiah warned: "Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help, trusting in horses, and putting their confidence in chariots, because they are many: and in horsemen, because they are very strong; and have not trusted in the Holy One of Israel, and have not sought after the Lord" (Isaiah 31:1-2).

Let the enemy come as so many armored and panoplied Goliaths thinking that steel must always be met by steel alone, and we shall, like other Davids, go out to meet them unto victory clothed in the Power of Him Who gave to the evil of this earth its one mortal wound — an open tomb, a gaping sepulchre, an empty grave.

Whence shall come our hope for peace? It will not come from the common man unpurified by faith; for once in power, he will cease to be the common man, the proletarian, and will become the uncommon man, the bureaucrat.

Rather we must trust in the common man made uncommon by the Power of Him Who dared to say to the first of all Totalitarian Caesars of Christian History: "Thou shouldst not have any power . . . unless it were given thee from above" (John 19:11).

And for all of us who have the fullness of faith, be not cast down because the persecutors of religion, having laid the Church, like its Founder, in the tomb, utter the boast: "Behold the place where we laid it." Remember the law of Progress of the Church is the reverse of the law of Progress of the world. We are most progressive when we are most hated.

Whence shall come our hope for the Church? It will not come from the world, for if the world loved the Church, the Church would be no salvation to the world. If it were not hated, it would be weak. It is only because the fires of its Truth are blinding evil eyes and convicting them of sin and judgment, that the world vainly tries to put them out. And though the world is tearing up all the photographs and blue-prints of a society and a family based on the moral law of God, be not disheartened. The Church has kept the negatives.

Francis Thompson compared the Church to the lily, depicting first its defeat, then its resurrection, in these magnificent lines:

"O Lily of the King! low lies thy silver wing, And long has been the hour of thine unqueening;
And thy scent of Paradise on the night wind spills its sighs,
Nor any take the secrets of its meaning. O Lily of the King! I speak a heavy thing,
O patience, most sorrowful of daughters!
Lo, the hour is at hand for the troubling of the land,
And red shall be the breaking of the waters.
"Sit fast upon thy stalk, when the blast shall with thee talk, With the mercies of the King for thine awning; And the just understand that thine hour is at hand, Thine hour at hand with power in the dawning. When the nations lie in blood, and their kings a broken brood, Look up. O most sorrowful of daughters! Lift up thy head and hark what sounds are in the dark, For His feet are coming to thee on the waters!"

(Lilium Regis)

We are living in a period of history like unto that of the Roman Empire when Julian the Apostate sat upon the throne of the Caesars. The persecution of Christ which he initiated was not like the earlier persecutions, which were prompted by the release of a barbaric instinct, but rather was due to the perversion and the loss of faith in Christ. Like his successors in the modern world, Julian persecuted because he had lost his faith — and since his conscience would not let him alone, he would not let the Church alone. There is a story to the effect that he made a tour of the Roman Empire to investigate the success of his persecutions. He came to the ancient city of Antioch where, disguising himself, he entered into the inns, taverns, and public markets better to learn the fruits of his hate. On one occasion, watching thousands of people crowd into a temple dedicated to Mithra, he was recognized by an old Christian friend whose name was Agathon. Pointing to the crowd and to the apparent success of the pagan cult, he sneered this question to his friend:

"Agathon, what ever happened to that carpenter of Galilee — does he have any jobs these days?" Agathon answered: "He is building a coffin now for the Roman Empire, and for you."

Six months later Julian thrust a dagger into his own heart. Throwing it toward the heavens against which he had rebelled, as his own unredemptive blood fell back upon him, he uttered his last and most famous line: “O Galilean, Thou has conquered!” He always does! 

[Dawn Marie]

Phenomenal!