Something Beautiful Has Changed

The moment someone recommends a change in your life, the reaction can either be met with resignation, realizing that change is necessary, or resistance because you simply do not want to. The human perspective on change in relation to God involves a tension between a personal human desire and the desire for God in our lives. When Israel was liberated from Egyptian bondage, as recorded in the book of Exodus, change was about to occur. Israel had strayed from worshipping the one true God and thus had to change their adapted pagan way of living.

Israel’s necessity for change took a dramatic turn through the Passover event, as it signified a liberation from spiritual and carnal bondage that would require a change in the Israelites' manner of worship and living. The sprinkling of the blood of an unblemished lamb on the doorpost of every Israelite home introduces a change. The saving of Israel through the Passover provides us with the fulfillment of the Passover feast in the New Testament by the true Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. It is Jesus as the Incarnate Word, who, through his death and resurrection, willingly came to take away the sins of the world for the salvation of humanity from the clutches of sin and death. Jesus reminds us of his mission of change or fulfillment as follows,

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.[1]

Jesus’ death and resurrection establish a profound change for us as children of God because now we have received an opportunity to actively participate in His death and resurrection through the Mass of Eucharistic sacrifice. Our way of living is no longer directed by the law of the prophets but is fulfilled by the way of the Cross. God is now known through the Son, Jesus, who is now known instead of being seen. The significance of the Passion narrative is that a change has occurred where you and I are no longer away from Jesus Christ but within him through his death and resurrection on the Cross. Our identity begins to change due to the salvific acts of Christ, where freedom from sin is accomplished through the death of Christ and confirmed by His Church. St. Paul refers to this change I speak of that occurs at the moment of our baptism in relation to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ,

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.[2]

St. Paul then speaks of the change that occurs in us from our former selves enslaved by sin to our new way of living through the death of Christ,

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our former man was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For he who has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. For we know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.[3]

The salvific events of the Paschal mystery reveal death to sin and a new life in Jesus Christ.[4] St. Paul reminds us of this new life when he declares it is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me, and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me.[5] Again, St. Paul refers to a change from the carnal to the spiritual.[6] In his discourse on the resurrection of the body, he acknowledges that a change will occur in a twinkling of an eye, where the dead will be raised imperishable from the perishable, mortal to immortal. Death is destroyed and no longer possesses its sting.[7]

The reality of these changes St. Paul speaks of became very real with a gentleman I will call John, whose journey to Christ traversed many religions, theologies, and isms, eventually leading him to enter the Catholic Church. As he described his journey to me, he reflected on how, at every spiritual turn, something was missing; as he would describe it, “I no longer want to be the man I was but desire to be the man I am called to be.” His desire for a gradual conversion away from his former life was never completely addressed in the other religions and isms he dabbled in. The propositions of other religions and isms never addressed the change he sought, the spiritual and human transformation where the despair and doubt that had imprisoned him could be set free. As he discovered the unique reality of Jesus Christ as both man and God, he discovered the undeniable relationship between Christ and the Church he founded, the Catholic Church. This began his final journey of change. The call to conversion, the Christ figure who was both fully human and divine, which he described as such a “fascinating gift” for man, the way of the Cross, the history of how God communicated to his children, the reality of the one true Church, was too much for him to ignore and characterize as simply another ism.

As he prepared to come home to the Catholic Church at the Easter vigil, he described to me how, for the first time in his life, he was able to know that something beautiful had changed in him. His entire life was now a perpetual sacrifice for Christ; the peace and joy he long sought for many years had been found, and he no longer felt lost in the world. He was home. As we prepare to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and the victory over sin and death, may our desire to always be at home with Christ never fade. All Hail, Christ the King!