Resurrectio Domini, spes nostra – Herrens oppstandelse er vårt håp
Kjære brødre og søstre urbi et orbi (i Roma og over hele verden)
Fra dypet av mitt hjerte ønsker jeg dere alle en velsignet påskehøytid. For å sitere den hellige Augustin: Resurrectio Domini, spes nostra – Herrens oppstandelse er vårt håp (Sermone 261:1). Med disse ordene forklarte den store biskopen for de troende at Jesus stod opp fra de døde for at vi – som alle skal dø – ikke skal miste håpet, ikke tro at døden er slutten på alt. Kristi oppstandelse girt oss håp (cf. ibid.).
Slik begynte pave Benedikt sin tale til byen og verden første påskedag, og på Vatikanradioens nettsider leser vi en englsk oversettelse av talen:
Indeed, one of the questions that most preoccupies men and women is this: what is there after death? To this mystery today’s solemnity allows us to respond that death does not have the last word, because Life will be victorious at the end. This certainty of ours is based not on simple human reasoning, but on a historical fact of faith: Jesus Christ, crucified and buried, is risen with his glorified body. Jesus is risen so that we too, believing in him, may have eternal life. This proclamation is at the heart of the Gospel message. As Saint Paul vigorously declares: “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.” He goes on to say: “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied” (1 Cor 15:14,19). Ever since the dawn of Easter a new Spring of hope has filled the world; from that day forward our resurrection has begun, because Easter does not simply signal a moment in history, but the beginning of a new condition: Jesus is risen not because his memory remains alive in the hearts of his disciples, but because he himself lives in us, and in him we can already savour the joy of eternal life.
The resurrection, then, is not a theory, but a historical reality revealed by the man Jesus Christ by means of his “Passover”, his “passage”, that has opened a “new way” between heaven and earth …
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