My Dear Friends,
I am happy to share with you this profound meditation on the simplicity of faith in the face of the empty tomb and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, by Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, retired Archbishop of Milan, Italy, which leads me to say “Amen!” to the insights of this Scripture scholar, preacher, teacher, and Cardinal of the Catholic Church. I hope your faith leads you in that same direction in the holy Easter season that follows our celebration of the great feast of Christ’s resurrection from the dead.
“It doesn’t take much to believe. It needs the gift of the Holy Spirit which he does not let our hearts lack and on our part we have to pay heed to a few well placed little signs. Let us look at what happened at the empty tomb of Jesus: gasping and in tears Mary Magdalene said: ‘They have taken away the Lord and we do not know where they have put him.’ Peter goes into the sepulcher, sees the bandages and the shroud folded aside and still does not understand. But the other disciple, more intuitive and simple, whom Jesus loved, he understands. He ‘saw and believed,’ says the Gospel, because the small signs present in the sepulcher stirred in him the certainty that the Lord had risen. He did not need a treatise of theology; he didn’t write thousands of pages on the event. He saw small signs … but it was enough because his heart was already prepared to understand the mystery of the infinite love of God.
“Sometimes we are in search of complicated signs, and it even goes well. But it can take little to believe if the heart is willing and if it pays heed to the Spirit who instills confidence and joy in believing, a sense of satisfaction and fullness. If we are so simple and open to grace, we enter into the number of those people to whom it is given to proclaim those essential truths that light up existence … We feel how perfect joy is possible in this world also, despite the sufferings and pains of every day.”
(From 30Days in the Church and the World, Number 11, 2006: The Simplicity of Christmas)
Have a blessed, happy, and holy Easter and Easter season!
Your Bishop,
+Most Rev. Robert J. Baker