Joy in the resurrection

- He is risen: The first Easter by Arthur Hughes

The 30th week of Creighton's online retreat is about Jesus' resurrection and the grace that is asked for is the ability to share in his joy. That seems like it should be easily accomplished but for many it's difficult, me included. Here's a little about this from a book by William Barry SJ, Finding God in All Things: A Companion to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius ........

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Christians believe that Jesus was raised from the dead, but have we ever experienced what that means for Jesus and for our world? In the Spiritual Exercises Ignatius expects that those who have received in some measure the grace of compassion for Jesus and his sufferings, both personal and in his mystical body, will begin to desire to experience the joy of Jesus' resurrection. Once again under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit of God, retreatants are expected to desire "the grace to be glad and rejoice intensely because of the great joy and the glory of Christ our Lord" (Spiritual Exercises n. 221) ....

The fact that we are asking for a grace should alert us to the possibility that the grace may not be easily attained, not because God withholds it, but because we seem to resist it. This seems paradoxical. One would think that we would be eager to attain this grace after suffering with Jesus through the passion. But .... The resurrection is not a restoration of the status quo ante, of things as they were before the passion and death. It does not erase those cruel memories. No! The Christ had to die in this way in order to be who he now is. In other appearances this "necessity" is underscored by the fact that the disciples see the marks of the nails and of the wound in his side. The past with all its cruelties is not undone. In fact, without that past Jesus would be different from the person he now is. But the disciples and we, too, want the cruel memories to be erased. "It was only a bad dream," we hope to be able to say. We do not want to face the truth that only through the actual life and death he and we undergo can we attain the joy of resurrection .....

I want to repeat once again Macmurray's maxim of real religion. "Fear not; the things that you are afraid of are quite likely to happen to you, but they are nothing to be afraid of." The resurrection of Jesus demonstrates real religion. The passion and death really did happen, but, the resurrection of Jesus says, they are nothing to be afraid of. When we receive the grace of rejoicing with Jesus in his glory, then we want to shout Alleluia over and over again ....

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Speaking for myself, I'm not quite there yet :)

But after watching the end of the movie Jesus, I do get a glimpse of what that joy might be like. Here below is a YouTube excerpt from that movie that takes us from Jesus being lowered from the cross to his resurrection, and even beyond (it has the ending that I've never seen before, as it was cut from the US version of the movie for being too controversial :) ......