Just a Solitary Life?
by Bishop Victor Galeone

Around Christmas, cards are sometimes exchanged that carry a version of this anonymous poem. I recall how moved I was many years ago when I read it for the first time.

And yet, there’s a fundamental fact that’s missing. Minus that fact, Jesus would have been a nonentity on the pages of history. Did you detect what’s missing? There is no mention of his resurrection! That’s the linchpin of the entire “solitary life.”

The enemies of Christianity attempt to dismiss the resurrection as a hoax concocted by his disciples. They allege that the disciples moved his corpse to another location. Or perhaps they were hallucinating.

St. John Chrysostom, an early Church Father, refuted all these bogus arguments by reasoning: “How do you account for the fact that these men, who deserted and denied Christ during his lifetime, set out to win the whole world for him after his death? Did they perhaps say to themselves, ‘He could not save himself while he was alive, but now that he is dead, he will extend a helping hand to us?’ …It is evident, then, that if they had not seen him risen from the dead and had proof of his power, they would never have risked so much – including their own lives.”

St. Paul asserts the same thing in 1 Corinthians 15: “If Christ has not risen from the dead, our preaching is useless, and so too is your faith…If our hope in Christ is for this life only, we are to be pitied more than everyone else.”

To the Corinthians’ objection that God cannot resurrect a body that has been devoured by lions or reduced to ashes, St. Paul states: (paraphrase) “How foolish! That seed you plant in the springtime is ugly, wrinkled – seemingly dead. Yet after the spring rains and under the summer sun, that same seed gives life to a marvelous bloom. So too, our body – planted weak and perishable – will rise powerful and glorious.”

Yes, Jesus is alive! Ultimately it’s due to his bodily resurrection that he is “the central figure of the human race (B.C./A.D.).” But he does not wish to reign merely on the pages of a calendar. He wants to reign in our hearts.

I concluded my message in the January/February issue with a challenge. I asked you to begin each day with this short aspiration: “Lord Jesus, I love you. Come into my heart and stay with me all day long.” I now renew that challenge. Until it becomes a habit, why not keep a short reminder next to your bed on retiring? You will soon notice a deeper relationship developing with the Lord as he becomes the center of your life.