Vigils Reading

TO BE RISEN WITH CHRIST

By Thomas Merton6

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The risen life is not easy; it is also a dying life. The presence of the

Resurrection in our lives means the presence of the Cross, for we do not rise

with Christ unless we also first die with him. It is by the Cross that we enter the

dynamism of creative transformation, the dynamism of resurrection and

renewal, the dynamism of love. The teaching of St. Paul is centered entirely on

the Resurrection. How many Christians really understand what St. Paul is

talking about when he tells us that we have “died to the Law” in order to rise

with Christ? How many Christians dare to believe that whoever is risen with

Christ enjoys the liberty of the sons and daughters of God and is not bound by

the restrictions and taboos of human prejudice?

To be risen with Christ means not only that one has a choice and that one

may live by a higher law – the law of grace and love – but that one must do so.

The first obligation of the Christian is to maintain their freedom from all

superstitions, all blind taboos and religious formalities, indeed from all empty

forms of legalism. Read the Epistle to the Galatians again… Read it in the light

of the Church’s summons to complete renewal.

The Christian must have the courage to follow Christ. The Christian who

is risen in Christ must dare to be like Christ: one must dare to follow conscience

even in unpopular causes. One must, if necessary, be able to disagree with the

majority and make decisions one knows to be according to the Gospel and

teaching of Christ, even when others do not understand why the person is acting

this way.

“The followers of Christ are called by God not according to their

accomplishments, but according to God’s own purpose and grace.”… Too many

Christians are not free because they submit to the domination of other people’s

ideas. They submit passively to the opinions of the crowd. For self-protection

they hide in the crowd, and run along with the crowd – even when it turns into

a lynch mob. They are afraid of the aloneness, the moral nakedness, which they

feel apart from the crowd.

But the Christian in whom Christ is risen dares to think and act differently

from the crowd. He has ideas of his own, not because he is arrogant, but because

he has the humility to stand alone and pay attention to the purpose and the

grace of God, which are often quite contrary to the purposes and the plans of an

established human power structure. If we have risen with Christ then we must

dare to stand by him in the loneliness of his Passion, when the entire

establishment, both religious and civil, turned against him as a modern state

would turn against a dangerous radical. In fact, there were “dangerous radicals”

among the Apostles. If we study the trial and execution of Jesus we find that he

was condemned on the charge that he was a revolutionary, a subversive radical,

fighting for the overthrow of legitimate government. This was not true in the

political sense. Jesus stood entirely outside of all Jewish politics, because his

Kingdom was not of this world. And yet he was a “freedom fighter” in a different

way. His death and resurrection were the culminating battle in his fight to

liberate us from all forms of tyranny, all forms of domination by anything or

anyone except the Spirit, the Law of Love, the “purpose and grace” of God.

6 He is Risen. Thomas Merton. Argus Communications. 1975. p.18.14