Dear Saints,

It is perhaps the most succinct yet haunting description of Good Friday: “the author of Life you put to death.” If it were just an eloquent metaphor it would be powerful enough, but this is far more than a mere literary device: it’s an accurate historical account. Jesus is God, and God is the creator of all that exists, and we did kill him. It’s worth pausing a moment to contemplate the startling magnitude of what we accomplished that day.

And yet what happened next is more startling still: “but God raised him from the dead.” St. Luke doesn’t mean that in a grotesque, Hollywood un-dead kind of way. On the contrary, Jesus was literally alive again, doing all the things alive people do. But he was also doing something more.

Bishop Barron once said the great hope of ancient Israel was not a “jail-break” from Earth, but rather the exact opposite: “the unification of heaven and earth in a great marriage.” By coming through death into new life, Jesus began that unification. The good news is that we’re invited to share in his work. We, too, are called to be the unifying forces of heaven and earth. With every choice, we can allow the love of heaven itself to be perfected in us, such that with every next choice, we can infuse that love into the whole world.

Christ’s Peace,

Father Daniel

δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ