The resurrection of Christ is not an idea but a fact that really happened, says Bishop

Mons. Francesco Cavina, Bishop Emeritus of Carpi (Italy), has called the faithful to maintain hope despite difficult times, because Christ has risen and that is not an idea or a symbol, but a fact that “really happened.”

In his Comment on the Gospel On Easter Sunday, the Italian prelate said that the night Jesus resurrected has been “the brightest in history”, because in it “the light broke the darkness” and life triumphed over death. It is the night “in which God definitely responded to the need for salvation of humanity.”

Mons. Cavina remembers that women, when they reached the sepulcher, saw that it was empty. In that place of death they appear “two men ‘with glowing clothing” “who ask them:” Why are you looking for among the dead who lives? “

The Prelate explained that it is a question also addressed to today’s people. “Who did we come to look for? A memory? An ancient rite? An emotion? A tradition that is repeated every year? Or are we here to let us get comforting news that changes our lives? Are we here to welcome the announcement that changed the history of the world?”

“Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified, is not here. He has risen! The resurrection is not a symbol, an idea. It is a fact. It really happened. In time. In history. Women and men who saw him die in the atrocious way, found him alive. They touched him. They spoke and ate with him,” he said.

The Italian bishop said that since that day nothing is the same, “because if Christ resurrected, then death no longer has the last word. Sin is forgiven. Hope reborn. St. John Chrysostom exclaimed: ‘Christ has risen, and you are no longer a slave to death!’

Mons. Cavina said that difficult days are lived, “marked by fatigue, by uncertainties, by a faith that seems to fade.” However, “we are not alone. Christ – as writing origins – walks with us as a walker.”

“The Christian faith, therefore, is not above all a moral to observe, but an encounter with the resurrected. Not a list of duties, but a deep relationship with the Lord who loved us to the cross and now calls us to live a new life with him,” he said.

Therefore, the prelate encouraged “start again” and put again “in the center to Jesus, the living, present in the Eucharist, in the word that speaks to us, on the face of the brothers. We will put ourselves back on the way with the look fixed on the one who lives and reigns yesterday, today and always.”