Vigils Reading – SS Philip & James

THE APOSTOLIC WITNESS

By Jean Frisque6

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They were still talking about all this when he himself stood among them

and said to them, “Peace be with you!”

The preeminent witnesses to the resurrection of Christ were the apostles.

From the time of Jesus’ baptism to his death, they accompanied him in his

public ministry. His death on the cross at the first threw them into a panic, but

soon afterwards it clarified everything for them, once it had been placed in its

Scriptural context, through the aid of the resurrected Christ himself.

But was the testimony of the apostles limited to this single well-founded

assertion: He whom you crucified has risen from the dead through the power of

God? In reality, there was much more: the apostles did not only offer an

eyewitness account of an event but the testimony of their faith. Only their faith

enabled them to discover why the death on the cross was the key-event of

salvation-history and in what way it led to the life of the resurrection. And theirs

was not simply any faith, but faith in the paschal experience itself, the faith

which had perceived that in Jesus Christ all people were called to share in the

divine filiation and to contribute on their own behalf to the construction of the

Kingdom.

Nor was this all. The witness which the apostles rendered to the

resurrection of Christ was above all an authorized witness. The apostles had

received from the resurrected Christ himself their power to testify validly to

him. They had received the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the resurrected Christ. Thus

the very life of the resurrected Christ was given to the apostolic group, and the

Church which they would construct in his name would be animated by this same

life. The Church was to be the temple of the Holy Spirit, and the life which

circulated in her would testify until the end of time to the resurrection of her

Head!

Thus we can see why the apostolic witness rendered to the resurrected

Christ was inseparable from the life which animated the first Christian

community. This witness was necessarily communal. The preaching in which

this witness took shape was absolutely inseparable from the grace of

communion given to the primitive community and its efforts to be entirely

faithful to the law of universal charity.

Today’s Christians are not wrong, therefore, when they insist upon the

importance of the testimony of their life. But the life to which they must witness

in order to testify to the resurrected Christ is the life of Christ himself. This life

is displayed here on earth by the way of total obedience unto death for the love

of all people, for such an obedience leads us constantly from death to life. Such

a sign can only be displayed by the Church herself.

6 London, 1965, vol. 3, pp 77-78.13