Easter’s Victory for Truth and Freedom

"We do not believe in Christ’s resurrection because it makes a nice ending or stirs sympathy. We believe it because it is true." O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting? ~ I Corinthians 15:55

From Crisis

By Msgr Robert J. Batule, STL

We do not believe in Christ’s resurrection because it makes a nice ending or stirs sympathy. We believe it because it is true.

A good many years ago, I suggested to some friends that we start a Catholic book discussion group. Initially, I thought our group could discuss all kinds of Catholic literature and not limit ourselves to just one area. Gradually, though, it became clear to me that it was better for us to read and discuss Catholic novels. And that’s what we did, meeting four times per year for five years.

We are hardwired with an affinity for stories. We like listening to them, and we like telling them too.

In most instances, we know when stories are true and when they are not. If necessary, we can always fact-check stories, verifying their accuracy by consulting other sources. In some instances, we don’t have to go through a long process of fact-checking and verification. Sometimes, the story just seems so implausible on the face of it that there isn’t a chance it could be true. When elements of the story don’t add up, we conclude it’s just not credible.

When a story is fictitious, we can still enjoy it and be edified. Fiction teaches us important lessons—like sympathy, for example. We sympathize with characters in a story, we understand and respect their motives for acting in a certain way, and we can even see ourselves doing the same thing. When we close the book, we’re able to be more sympathetic to real-life figures such as a neighbor in distress or a coworker who is anxious.

When we’re not reading fiction though, most of us want to be told the truth. We don’t like people making up stories and deceiving us. We don’t like to be taken for a ride and transported into someone else’s fantasy world. Trusting our previous experiences in life, we are usually quite good at identifying a fabrication and dismissing it as nonsense.

In St. Luke’s Gospel, the evangelist describes how the women who had come from Galilee with Jesus took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb (Luke 24:1). Upon reaching the tomb, they found the stone rolled away (Luke 24:2). The women were greeted by two men in dazzling garments who spoke to them and informed them that Jesus had been raised (Luke 24:5).

They then brought word of this to the eleven and the others (Luke 24:9). After giving us the names of the women—Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James—the evangelist reports that their story seemed like nonsense, and thus were the women not believed (Luke 24:11). Their story was ignored by all but Peter, who got up and ran to the tomb (Luke 24:12).

We believe in the Resurrection not because it is a nice, happy ending to the story of Jesus. And neither do we believe in the Risen Lord because we have sympathy for Him. Something much more profound is at issue concerning the terminus of the Paschal Mystery.

Jesus did not go to the Cross because He lied. He went to the Cross because of the truth. “I came into the world to testify to the truth” (John 18:37). Jesus made this known to Pilate, the Roman procurator, a short time before the crucifixion. Still, it would be a great underestimation on our part if all we did was acknowledge truth in the death of the Son of Man. It’s in the Resurrection that there is truth too!  

Jesus did not go to the Cross because He lied. He went to the Cross because of the truth.Tweet This

In Veritatis Splendor (1993), an encyclical of Pope John Paul II, we find these prescient words: “The Resurrection [of Jesus] from the dead is the supreme exaltation of the fruitfulness and saving power of a freedom lived out in truth” (87). John Paul II’s successor, Pope Benedict XVI, writes in Sacramentum Caritatis (2007) that it’s not just truth but freedom which is at issue. “Jesus is the lodestar of human freedom,” is what the pontiff contends at the start of his post-synodal apostolic exhortation. “[W]ithout him,” he continues, “freedom loses its focus, for without the knowledge of truth, freedom becomes debased, alienated and reduced to empty caprice. With him, freedom finds itself” (2).

It is clear from the Gospels that the very first thing the disciples did upon hearing about the Lord’s Resurrection was to tell others that it’s true. For instance, Mary Magdalene went to the brothers right away at Jesus’ behest, and that came after her own encounter with the Risen Christ (John 20:18). Alas, this was just the beginning. For eventually all the “telling” in individual cases gave way to Pentecost and a much wider evangelization.

In the course of that evangelization, and as a result of it, men and women have chosen to die rather than compromise the Faith they embraced in their Baptism. We call these men and women martyrs for the Faith. What in the world would ever inspire the martyrs to risk it all—their hopes and aspirations, their reputations, their very lives? In a word, it is the truth.

And, specifically, in what does that truth consist? Well, how about the truth of the sacredness of human life from the moment of conception until natural death? How about the truth of marriage according to the order of creation? And how about the truth of the Catholic Faith itself amid the pluralism of religions in societies today?

The Catholic Faith is true, dogmatically and in every other way. The Resurrection anchors the veracity of Catholicism simply because no other claim by Jesus surpasses that of living beyond an earthly death. The Resurrection is the Lord’s victory first, but it is our way to the abundant life too.     

Living in accord with the truth leads to personal conviction and the maturity of conscience. It also contributes mightily to the formation of character. These outcomes—the birth and maintenance of conviction, the proper development of conscience and the forging of character—individually and together affect how free we are in ourselves. This is utterly decisive too. For as important as it is to live in a free society, it is even more important to be personally free.

Living in accord with the truth leads to personal conviction and the maturity of conscience. It also contributes mightily to the formation of character.Tweet This

Conviction, conscience, and character belong to the inner realm of the person. They are not, as it were, grafted on to us from the outside. Thus, it would be proper to see ourselves as interior architects, that is, persons who assume responsibility for fashioning growth in freedom or not. And that last word, “not,” is key here. For we don’t always succeed in our pursuit of freedom. We fail, and we can sometimes “double down” in our failures. To use more biblical and theological language at this point, we lapse into darkness. Without light—the light of grace—we remain in sin.

Pope Benedict XVI in Sacramentum Caritatis above warns us that freedom can lose its focus…it can become debased, alienated, and reduced to empty caprice. Clearly, then, freedom does not stand by itself. It is always in relation to the truth. In fact, even before the Resurrection, Jesus would say the truth will make you free (John 8:32).

But it is only as the Risen Savior that the most definitive relationship between freedom and truth is achieved for all of history. Because of the Resurrection, truth and freedom never define just what can be attained on earth in a life well-lived but what is hailed for all eternity in Heaven.