"Dux vitae mortuus, regnat vivus"--"Life's Captain, who died,
now lives and reigns."
These words come from the ancient Easter Sequence, the Victimae Paschali,
which is proclaimed before the Gospel on Easter Sunday Masses. The message is
clear: Easter is not simply about someone rising from the dead; it is about the
conquering of a Kingdom. Life's Captain not only lives; He also reigns. He has a
kingdom, and it is the Kingdom of Life. Jesus is explicit about this when
speaking to the apostles after His Resurrection. "All power in heaven and on
earth has been given to me" (Mt. 28:17).
Death is not merely a single event. It, too, is a kingdom, to which some
choose to belong. "By the envy of the devil, death entered the world, and
they who are in his possession experience it" (Wisdom 2:24). Yet God "has
rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his
beloved Son" (Col. 1:13; see also Heb. 2:14-15). Christ, by rising, has not
only overcome His own death; He has overcome ours! He has overturned the entire
kingdom of death.
The effects of that defeated kingdom do, indeed, endure, even as the Kingdom
of God makes progress in growth through the phases of human history. Pope John
Paul II has pointed out the existence of "a kind of 'conspiracy
against life,'" a "war of the powerful against the weak" in our day
(see The Gospel of Life (EV), n.12).
Yet in working to overcome this culture of death, marked most tragically by
abortion, we are not simply working "for victory." We, rather, are working "from
victory!" Victory is our starting point. Christ is Risen! This concrete,
historical event, in all its truth and significance, contains the objective
defeat of the culture of death. The Victory of Life, furthermore, is present in
every Mass, where we proclaim, "Dying you destroyed our death; Rising you
restored our life!"
Easter gives us our identity as "the people of life" (EV n.79). Baptized into
Christ's victory over death, we are also sent to proclaim, celebrate, and serve
that victory (see EV 78-101). At Easter Mass, we renew the vows of our baptism,
one of which is that we "reject Satan and all his works." Chief among those
works is death. Yet the Son of God has destroyed death, and that means that we
who follow Him likewise are called to stand against it.
Many who sincerely believe may not realize the full implications of that
belief. To believe in and celebrate the Resurrection necessarily immerses us in
and commits us to the conflict against evils such as abortion and euthanasia. We
are not free to ignore the battle or entrust it to someone else. It belongs to
our very identity to fight it. It belongs to the very identity of the priest,
furthermore, to preach it.
And it belongs to our identity to do all this with the utmost serenity,
confidence, and joy. Christ is truly Risen and is with us! Let us rejoice and be
glad!
Priests for Life Columns
