Vigils Reading

THE LIFE THAT CONQUERS

From “The Eternal Year” by Fr Karl Rahner

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Because [Jesus] did not begin to heal, to save, and to transfigure the world

by transfiguring the symptoms on the surface, but began rather at the

innermost root, we suppose that nothing has happened to the essence beneath

this superficial area. Because the waters of grief and guilt still flow on the

surface where we stand, we fancy that their source in the depths is not yet dried

up. Because evil still carves new marks in the face of the earth, we conclude that

in the deepest heart of reality love is dead. But these are only appearances,

which we take for the reality of life.

Christ is risen because in death he conquered, and redeemed forever, the

innermost center of all earthly existence. And, having risen, he has kept this

innermost center in his control, and he continues to preserve it. If we

acknowledge that he has gone away to God’s heaven, this is only another way of

saying that he withdraws from us for a while the tangibility of his transfigured

humanity. But this is only another way of saying that there is no longer any

abyss between God and the world.

Christ is already in the midst of the poor things of this earth… He is in the

ineffable yearning of all creatures who, without knowing it, yearn for a share in

the transfiguration of his body. He is in the history of the earth, whose blind

course, with all its victories and all its crashing defeats, steers with uncanny

precision towards the day when his splendor, transforming everything, will

erupt out of the earth’s own depths. He is in all the tears as hidden joy, and in

every death as the life that conquers by seeming to die. He is the heart of this

earthly world and the mysterious seal of its eternal validity.