A 4th Sunday After Easter Thought About Living the Mysteries of Chris't Life

It's already the 4th Sunday after Easter in the traditional liturgical calendar (Fifth Sunday of Easter in the newfangled). As good Catholics, we attend to our spiritual life everyday, but in a special way on Sunday. Our efforts did not peak during Lent, then fizzle out. Indeed, Lent was ideally a boost that got a sometimes sputtering spiritual engine revved up again. 

How do we know if our spiritual engine is revved up? One way might be a diagnostic check of our spiritual practices: regular prayer, recollection, meditation, measured reading of Scripture and good spiritual works, studying the truths of our Catholic religion. 

Let's say we've got check marks a-plenty. Does that mean we're saints yet? Saints? Well isn't that the entire purpose of our spiritual life?

Even if it sounds like a bit of a stretch - becoming a saint, that is - consider: We're either going to achieve sainthood here and now, in this world, or...we're going to have to keep at it after we die. After all, Heaven accepts saints only. That's what saints are: those who are in Heaven. Setting aside those who are headed south when they die, the rest of us should always have Heaven in our sights, right? And if we do, why not do all we can to get into Heaven on that first pass when we stand in front of Our Lord for our Particular Judgment?

OK, so maybe some of us figure second best - Purgatory - isn't the worst fate. But, seriously, do we really want to spend our time working on our spiritual life with the goal of second best? 

Assuming we can agree that best is better than second best, how do we gauge where things stand right now? Of course, only God knows for sure. But we can certainly take a shot at an honest assessment. 

So how do we make such an assessment?

For that we consult with Archbishop James Leen:

“The Christian life consists in actions which reflect the spirit of Christ, nay, more, in actions that incarnate, as it were, the spirit of Christ. Jesus must, by our union with Him, by our elimination of self in favor of Him, be permitted to perpetuate, in some measure, His life, in us. If we are to fulfil the designs of God in our regard, we must allow God to discern some dim outline of the features of His Divine Son in the physiognomy of our soul. It must be the aim of the true Christian to make applicable to himself the words of Saint Paul: ‘I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me.’

“The great Apostle has invented a completely new vocabulary to crystallize this truth. He speaks of being buried with Christ, of suffering with Christ, of rising with Christ, of being glorified with Christ, and so on. For the Apostle, the Passion, Death, and Resurrection were not events anchored in the sea of time, but events perpetually re-enacted in the Mystical Body. To the extent that the life of the first Adam is destroyed in the member of Christ, that is, to the extent that the life of the flesh and its concupiscences has been subjugated in him, the life of grace derived from Christ has freedom to develop: according as it does, the Christian in his life becomes identified with Christ and re-lives the life of Jesus. The Saints understood things thus. They did not content themselves with admiring the life of the Savior, they aimed at living it themselves. At times God deigns to give outward proofs of the actuality of this mystery as when He traced the marks of the Passion on the body of Saint Francis of Assisi. We must live the mysteries of Christ’s life, in the due order of these mysteries. All this living should subserve in us, and lead up to, the Resurrection.” (Archbishop James Leen, C.S.Sp.)

I hope sharing Father Leen's wise words have given us something to consider, better to meditate on, on this 4th Sunday after Easter. It's a perfect addition to our Easter spiritual devotions. And with the Easter Season drawing soon to a close, it's one good way to be sure we don't let the graces that come with this holy season slip through our hands.

Happy Easter!