Fullness of life in Christ
Christ is risen! After having gone through Lent in repentant anticipation of Christ’s resurrection, we cry out the Lord’s name with renewed joy and restored hope, “Alleluia!” Mary Magdalene, as written in a post by Rev. Fr. Patrick Nogoy, SJ, having known that her Master was no longer in the tomb, did not walk back home but instead ran with faith, with much faith, with only faith… to proclaim the good news. When the two disciples on their way to Emmaus recognized Jesus when he broke bread with them, they returned to Jerusalem, to the east where the sun rises, to light. Christ’s rising from the dead is our own rising from the depths of sin and frailty.
We know that central to the message of Easter is Christ’s conquest of Satan, the triumph of grace over sin, and the victory of life over death. We are people of the resurrection, of life that is Christ Himself. By such, a culture of death has no place in our Christian identity.
The bill seeking to re-impose the death penalty in the country has just passed the House of Representatives in its third and last reading. Now in the Senate, our legislators are yet to calendar the bill for hearings and deliberations. We are campaigning for our senators to simply junk the bill. Legal processes say there can be two ways of doing so, namely, that the proponents withdraw the bill and that the committee kills it. Otherwise, when it is deliberated, we pray that no law on death penalty should ever come out.
Christ saved us from the sting of death, offering us fullness of life in Him. He has pulled us from the pit of death. Let us not bury ourselves again by plunging our own brothers and sisters into the pangs of death, once the death penalty bill becomes a law. We thus stand our ground to protect the sanctity of life and defend the dignity of the human person that God created good in His own image and likeness.
We take inspiration from Mary Magdalene who ran to announce that Christ has risen. We imitate the two disciples at Emmaus who came back to Jerusalem because their hearts burned for Christ. Let us receive the light that Christ brings, the life that Christ offers.
#JunkDeathPenalty #LoveLife #Eastertide
