{"id":16878,"date":"2016-08-30T16:58:48","date_gmt":"2016-08-30T20:58:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/?p=16878"},"modified":"2016-11-21T16:48:44","modified_gmt":"2016-11-21T21:48:44","slug":"reflections-on-the-resurrection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/2016\/08\/30\/reflections-on-the-resurrection\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on the Resurrection"},"content":{"rendered":"

He is not here … Come, see the place where He lay<\/em>. The empty tomb certainly has its\u00a0own pathos, its own miniature eloquence. It speaks the silence, the absence, which the\u00a0Resurrection necessarily yields, like the darkness of shadows cast by an unseen light. It\u00a0shows, we might say, that something happened<\/em>, but gives us nothing out of which the\u00a0Resurrection can be imagined or reconstructed. For how can one elicit sound from\u00a0silence, presence from absence, light from darkness? And yet the tomb’s emptiness\u00a0doesn’t mean deficiency. The empty tomb does what it can. In its own terms, in the\u00a0framework of worldly time and worldly space, it tells about the Resurrection everything\u00a0that can be said. Mundane time and space can know and testify only what the angel\u00a0summons them to make clear, and concerning the Resurrection their whole truth is\u00a0encompassed in it: Come, see the place where He lay … He is not here<\/em>.<\/p>\n

An eloquence, then, which is simultaneously a radical inarticulacy: both dimensions of the\u00a0tomb are comprised in the Church’s Faith. In the Catechism<\/em>, the tomb is called an\u00a0essential sign<\/em> of the real event<\/em> of the Resurrection: an absence absolutely entailed by\u00a0Risen presence. And yet, as the Catechism<\/em> also says, the tomb offers no proof, for the\u00a0absence of Christ’s body<\/em> … could be explained otherwise<\/em>. So we can read back, from the\u00a0Resurrection to the tomb, but not forwards, from the tomb to the Resurrection. Ultimately,\u00a0the time and space of the empty tomb witness only indirectly<\/em>, and only in the context of\u00a0Faith<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But suppose we continue for a moment imagining that worldly time and space can know\u00a0and testify to things \u00ad- that is to say, can be witnesses. Shouldn’t we say that they would\u00a0have witnessed more than we’ve just allowed? And that in fact seems to be the\u00a0imagination of the Exultet<\/em> which we sing at the Easter Vigil. O vere beata nox, quae sola\u00a0meruit scire tempus et horam, in qua Christus ab inferis resurrexit! O truly blessed Night,\u00a0which alone deserved to know the time and the hour when Christ rose from the dead!\u00a0<\/em>This haunting exclamation invites the following kind of thought. Even if it isn’t something\u00a0mundane time and space can actually tell us, surely there was a mundane time at which\u00a0the Resurrection occurred and a mundane space through which it moved? And if so,\u00a0worldly time and space must know more of the Resurrection than the mere fact that He is\u00a0not here. They must know more than His absence. They must in their own terms know\u00a0also how that absence came about: the time and space of the tomb, within which Christ\u00a0first stirred, then rose up, and, finally, departed. Worldly time and space, in other words,\u00a0encompass not just the absence of the Resurrected Christ, but first and foremost His\u00a0presence.<\/p>\n

Well, perhaps. But in this area the Church seems to want to warn us off. Can we in fact\u00a0<\/em>suppose a spatio\u00adtemporal framework in which the Resurrection comes about? Can we\u00a0suppose the initiation of Resurrection to occupy a locatable time and space, which the\u00a0time and space of the tomb would themselves have known? The Catechism<\/em> reminds us\u00a0that no one was an eyewitness to Christ’s Resurrection and no evangelist describes it<\/em>.\u00a0Now was this merely something contingent, an accident as it were, so that we can simply\u00a0supply the details and imagine what would have been seen, if only there had been\u00a0someone there to see it? No one can say<\/em>, the Catechism claims, how the Resurrection\u00a0came about physically<\/em>. This might be read as implying that there was a way in which the\u00a0Resurrection ‘came about physically’, and that no one can say anything about it simply\u00a0because no one happened to be there. But the immediately following sentence in the\u00a0Catechism<\/em> is this: Still less was…the innermost essence [of the Resurrection], Christ’s\u00a0passing over to another life,<\/em> [something] perceptible to the senses<\/em>. And this seems to\u00a0mean not just that no one in fact<\/em> saw the Resurrection come about, but rather that in\u00a0principle no one could<\/em> have seen it. The absence of witnesses is not, then, something\u00a0contingent. Witnesses were in fact impossible. And it is our Faith in the Resurrection\u00a0which itself requires us to affirm this.<\/p>\n

Now what is being ruled out here? I think we can put it like this. The Resurrection is not\u00a0something which happens within<\/em> time and space. More specifically, the transition from\u00a0death to Resurrection isn’t something which comes about for a body which throughout\u00a0remains subject to spatio\u00adtemporal locations<\/em>. Resurrection is never a reality for a body\u00a0which is<\/em> subject to time and space, only ever for a body which has been<\/em> so subject. It is\u00a0indeed the same body, which was<\/em> subject and, in Resurrection, is subject no longer. As\u00a0the Catechism<\/em> puts it: the risen body in which [Christ] appears is the same body which\u00a0has been tortured and crucified, for it still bares the traces of His Passion. Yet at the same\u00a0time this authentic, real body … [is] not limited by space and time … for Christ’s humanity\u00a0… beyond time and space … can no longer be confined to earth<\/em>. And so Resurrection\u00a0cannot possibly require any spatio\u00adtemporal manifestation, either in the tomb or anywhere\u00a0else. If<\/em> a Resurrected body is manifested in space and time, then it will act in certain\u00a0ways, which can be pointed to as evidence<\/em> of its Resurrection. But nothing at all can\u00a0require<\/em> a Resurrected body to be manifested in space and time, because Resurrection is\u00a0precisely the condition of a body which is no longer subject to spatio\u00adtemporality. In its\u00a0innermost essence, as the Catechism<\/em> says, Resurrection simply has no spatio\u00adtemporal\u00a0manifestation. That is why it is to misunderstand the Resurrection of Christ to insist that\u00a0there must have been something which happened<\/em> in the time and space of the tomb,\u00a0something within that time and space which the Resurrection consisted in<\/em> and looked like<\/em>\u00a0and which could have been witnessed<\/em>. Of anything of this kind, there was, and could\u00a0have been, nothing. That is why the emptiness of the tomb, the sheer absence of the\u00a0body, is the only truth which mundane time and space can tell of the innermost essence\u00a0of the Resurrection.<\/p>\n

So if mundane time and space find themselves telling the truth of the Resurrection in a\u00a0higher<\/em> mode, a mode beyond absence, then this will be because they have been graced<\/em> -\u00ad\u00a0approached and enriched by a plenitude which they themselves could never have\u00a0generated or demanded. Think about what are often called the Resurrection\u00a0appearances. Christ doesn’t take time or traverse space in order to arrive at the ‘when’\u00a0and ‘where’ of these appearances; nor are they terminated by His taking time or\u00a0traversing space in order to move away from them. No spatio\u00adtemporal continuity embeds\u00a0or encompasses them. Of course a given ‘when’ and ‘where’ always characterize these\u00a0appearances, but not by subjecting them. On the contrary, time and space are subjected\u00a0by the appearances themselves. For as long as the appearances last, the contingency\u00a0and dispersion of worldly time and space are overcome, subject to an unforeseeable and\u00a0transfixing enrichment and elevation. So the Risen Christ can be present to mundane\u00a0time and space, but He is never within<\/em> them; rather, times and places of His choosing\u00a0come to be within<\/em> Him. The Risen Christ can make Himself present to worldly time and\u00a0space, while at the same time manifesting that He does so freely<\/em>, from within His\u00a0sovereign and unfetteredly creative independence<\/em> of them.<\/p>\n

And it is for this reason, I think, that speaking of Resurrection appearances<\/em> doesn’t seem\u00a0quite right. The language of ‘appearance’ implies a certain passivity in what appears. The\u00a0‘appearance’ of something is its sheer ‘there-\u00adness’ for us, its compliant accessibility or\u00a0availability to being seen. And this passive accessibility or availability is in turn an\u00a0important part of what makes something into an object<\/em>, giving it what we call objectivity<\/em>.\u00a0But the Resurrection, when it manifests itself, is never something passively accessible or\u00a0available. Neither therefore is it an object, even if we add the qualification that the Risen\u00a0Christ is endowed with special powers enabling Him sometimes to disguise or seclude\u00a0His objectivity. Adding such a qualification seems merely to emphasize that we have got\u00a0things the wrong way round. The fundamental truth is surely His independence of\u00a0objective being-\u00adin-\u00adthe\u00ad-world, precisely as a consequence of His radical independence of\u00a0mundane time and space. If the Risen Christ makes Himself present to the world, it is\u00a0freely, actively, and out of love. He does not so much appear<\/em>, in<\/em> the world, as show<\/em>\u00a0Himself, to<\/em> the world and for<\/em> the world.<\/p>\n

I would like to say that it is in this loving sovereignty over worldly time and space, over\u00a0history, that the Resurrection as an ‘historical event’ is properly understood. That the\u00a0Resurrection is<\/em> an historical event is part of the Church’s Faith. But we have ways of\u00a0laying down in advance what an historical event must be, and therefore ways of\u00a0demanding that the Resurrection conform to our ideas of it. Rather than be taught by\u00a0God, we<\/em> in effect seek to teach Him<\/em>. So, as we have seen, we might want to say that if\u00a0the Resurrection is an historical event, there must have been something happening in the\u00a0tomb to the body of Christ which could have been pointed to as the Resurrection coming\u00a0about<\/em>; or, more generally, we might try to stipulate that if the Resurrection is real then the\u00a0Risen Christ must be in the world as an object is in the world. These are all mistakes. The\u00a0Resurrection is an historical event because it encompasses<\/em> history, not because history\u00a0encompasses it<\/em>. In other words, the Resurrection takes what belongs to history -\u00ad the body\u00a0of Christ in the tomb, the disciples, time and space themselves -\u00ad and, without destroying\u00a0them, transforms<\/em> them. The material, if you like, is always historical, but the manner in\u00a0which the material is treated exceeds history, drawing history into what lies beyond it. So\u00a0the Catechism<\/em> teaches that [although] the Resurrection was an historical event … still it\u00a0remains at the very heart of the mystery of Faith as something that transcends and\u00a0surpasses history<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The language of ‘surpassing’ and ‘transcending’, of course, is ambiguous. In some hands\u00a0it can be deployed to mean negating, forgetting, leaving behind. But in the Resurrection,\u00a0transcendence is a mode of love. Time and space are not negated or forgotten. That is\u00a0indeed the deepest reason for insisting that the Resurrection is an historical<\/em> event: in this\u00a0culmination of Christ’s redeeming work, the world is not left behind but affirmed; in this\u00a0culmination, the world is definitively and eternally disclosed as loved<\/em>. Mundane time and\u00a0space are not alien to God, trapped in some permanent incompatibility with the Divine. On\u00a0the contrary, in the Resurrection of Christ God’s eternal time and God’s eternal space\u00a0embrace worldly time and space as finite participants in His own life. As the Catechism<\/em>\u00a0says, henceforth Christ’s humanity belongs only to the Father’s divine realm<\/em>. In that\u00a0humanity, all<\/em> humanity is called and drawn. And not humanity alone. St Paul tells us that\u00a0in<\/em> [Christ] all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible … all\u00a0things were created through Him and for Him. He is before all things and in Him all things\u00a0hold together… For in Him all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him\u00a0to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in Heaven<\/em>. The Resurrection, then,\u00a0is nothing less than God’s final and irrevocable affirmation of creation itself: not only of\u00a0men and women, but also of our world.<\/p>\n

By Fr Philip Cleevely, Cong. Orat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He is not here … Come, see the place where He lay. The empty tomb certainly has its\u00a0own pathos, its own miniature eloquence. It speaks the silence, the absence, which…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Resurrection-cropped.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8brX6-4oe","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16878"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16878"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16880,"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16878\/revisions\/16880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}