Easter and Spiritual Freedom

The doors were shut, but Jesus came and stood among them, and said, “Peace be with you.” (John 20:26)

The Risen Lord shows a remarkable freedom with respect to earthly things. Not only is he entirely free from all weakness and suffering, but not even locked doors are no barrier to him, His body is full of intese and perfect life, and everything is easy to Him. Having conquered sin and death He has won for Himself the perfect peace of victory.

“Peace be with you.” The peace that He has won for Himself He gives to us. Perfect freedom from all mortality and suffering will come to us only after our own bodily resurrection, but even now we share in Christ’s freedom through the holiness given us in Baptism.  Blessed Columba Marmion teaches (Christ in His Mysteries, ch. 15) that holiness consists in two elements: first perfect freedom from sin and detachment from all creatures, and second belonging totally to God. Both elements are luminously manifest in the Resurrected Christ: For we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God

The readings for this season emphasize again and again that we, having died to sin with Christ, must now live entirely “to God.” If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. (Col 3:1-2) The joy of the Resurrection should enable us to delight in God alone and to achieve a total freedom from all attachment to creatures. “Get rid of the old leaven.” (cf. Col 3:1) Put away all the disordered desires and attachments that are the roots of sin and death, and rejoice only in God. This is what St Ignatius calls “indifference.”

St Bernard of Clairvaux in a remarkably stern Easter Sermon warns his monks, that having passed through the Red Sea with with Christ, they must take care not to look back to the carnal consolations of Egypt:

Woe to you, whoever you are, if like a dog you turn back  back to your own vomit, and like a pig you wash only to wallow again in the mire! (cf 2 Pet 2:22) I speak not only of those who bodily return to Egypt, but also those who return in their hearts, who seek after the joys of this world, and so lose the life of faith, which is love (caritas). For, “if any one loves the world, love for the Father is not in him.” (1 Joh 2:15)

In another sermon he warns his monks not to abandon the freedom they have won through the hard fast of Lent:

Nothing of the spiritual exercises [of Lent] should be lost or diminished at the coming of the Holy Feast of the Resurrection. Let us rather strive to pass over to a better life. For any one who, after the tears of penance, does not return to the consolations of the flesh, but advances to trust in the Divine Mercy and enters into a new devotion and joy in the Holy Spirit; any one who is not so much tormented by the memory of past sins, as he is full of delight and inflamed with desire for the eternal rewards; such a one is he who rises with Christ, who celebrates the Pasch, who hastens to Galilee. You therefore, dearly beloved, if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God; set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. (Col 3:1-2) Just as Christ rose from death through the glory of the Father, so might you too walk in the newness of life. (cf. Rom 6:4) You should pass from temporal joy (saeculari laetitia) and the consolations of this world by compunction and godly sorrow, to holy and spiritual devotion passing over with rejoicing and exulting. May He grant this to you who has passed over from this world to the Father, who draws us after Himself, and deigns to call us to Galilee to show us Himself, who is over all things, God, blessed for ever. Amen.