Greetings from the Confidentia Shrine!
The conclusion of the second week of the Easter season is already upon us. Celebrating the Risen Lord is a constant occasion for us to lift up our hearts – sursum corda!
Our father and founder, Father Joseph Kentenich explains:
“…Resurrexi! How jubilant and joyful that resounds through the halls of the Church! Resurrexi! I am risen! What does that mean, why does Our Lord rejoice? His resurrection is a double triumph, a triumph of victory and of love. …” (J. Kentenich March 28, 1937)
Christ rejoices because his resurrection is a victory of love, first of all for those he left behind, mourning in sorrow – for now he can return to them. “He can continue to educate them, he can take care that his followers are unshakably attached to him, that they can continue his work on earth.” We can imagine that this applied singularly to our Blessed Mother, who awaited his victory of love with steadfast faith.
Then Father Kentenich continues, emphasizing a second aspect of the victory of love:
“But the “Resurrexi” is at the same time a victory of love (…) for the Father: “Resurrexi et adjuc tecum sum” – “I am risen, and am with you always!” Those of us whom God has granted a very simple, strong childlikeness will understand the connection the best: “I am risen, and now I am with you always, Father!” (Ibid.)
In 1965, in his Easter sermons at St. Michael’s, Father told his listeners that as followers of Christ, we are called to share not only in his suffering, but also in the glorious victory of his Resurrection. And through Baptism, we are called, chosen to do so “…not only at the end of our lives, when our bodies are also drawn into the glory of the transfigured life of Our Lord – no, already now, here on earth, we are drawn into the participation in his transfigured life.” (J. Kentenich April 18, 1965) What does that mean for us? …Each one of us may rise with him anew and participate in the joy of his transfigured glory. We, too, may say, “I am risen, and now I am with you always, Father!”
This is indeed an ample reason to continuously lift up our hearts – sursum corda!
We lift up our hearts! On Easter, after the Lenten purification, our hearts should be “free for holy love, but therefore also free from selfish love. And if the whole world had the symbolic thinking, don’t you think our whole being would really be a strong symbolic sursum corda?” (J. Kentenich Aug 1, 1945)
Let us ask our Mother and Queen daily for this gift of a genuine sursum corda!
Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary