Bishop Barron: Alleluia! Christ is risen!

Friends, Alleluia! Christ is risen! Every sermon preached in the New Testament, every proclamation of the Gospel message by the first believers, had this message at its heart. The news that galvanized the first disciples and that changed the ancient world—and that continues to change our world—is the Good News that the Crucified One is alive. Everything said by Augustine, Aquinas, Francis of Assisi, Dante, Teresa of Avila, Thérèse of Lisieux, Pascal, Newman, Chesterton, and John Paul II comes down to the declaration that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. Every act of every saint is related to the fact of the Resurrection. Over the centuries, various thinkers and theologians have tried to maintain that Christianity is fundamentally a moral system at whose center stands the command to love God and neighbor. Some have wanted to strip Christianity of its mystical and supernatural elements, turning the Resurrection into a pleasant myth or an evocative symbol. But St. Paul gives the lie to these reductionistic interpretations: "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile." In other words, what your faith comes down to is the conviction that God the Father has raised his Son from the realm of the dead. Everything else in Christianity—ritual, liturgy, theology, morality—flows from this fact and is related to it. May the truth of the Resurrection encourage your spirit and enliven you with the gifts of faith, hope, and love this Easter season! Peace,

Bishop Robert Barron Founder, Word on Fire