He is Risen! Alleluia!
by: Denise Mailhot

Saturday Ramblins, Vol. 2, No. 10 ( May 15, 1999)

I was 21 and in my mind, I fought the team conducting the retreat all weekend. I really didn't know why I was there except that I wanted one of those "neat crosses" they were wearing. One other candidate and I were poker-faced for most of the retreat. Then came the closing.

By this time I had just started to warm up to the ideas that had been presented when hundreds of other young adults came from the back of the large hall upstairs and the goodness of God hit me and gutted me.

This was the day that Jesus came alive in me, rose in me, lifted me to a joy I had never known.

I still hadn't worked out the meaning of His resurrection a few years later when I was married and had been serving the movement for several years. One day a good Protestant friend came over for supper, and we discussed the differences in our beliefs, but also what made us "brother and sister in the Lord". We talked about different things -- the Ouija board that was out in my shed and some Tarot cards back there that had not been used in many years that needed to be tossed out (or better yet, burned). We talked about the Good News and I remember saying to him "Good News? What 'Good News'? What's so good about a man dying on the cross?"

Then the light went on when he said "Denise, He didn't stay on the cross. He's alive!"

What an enlightenment! So simple, but of course, it's true! He is alive! He is alive in the Church, in each and every one of us who proclaim that He is God, that He is the Lord of our lives! He is alive when we share His love with one another. He is alive when we minister to the poor and homeless. He is alive when we take the time to listen to another's hurts and fears, especially that person we tend to judge as "beneath" us. He is alive when we go beyond our comfort zones and we reach out to those family members and friends who have hurt us in the past. He is alive when we forgive people that we have held grudges against for so long.

He is alive when we choose His way, and not the world's way. When we choose to love those friends and family members who are living in sin, yet challenge them to a higher calling, for their own sake, for their own inner joy or peace, for their own eternal consequences! He is alive when we choose not to judge those around us, instead encouraging them to seek a better way in their lives.

How is He alive in you? What is it about your life that He calls you to look at and re-evaluate? How is He calling you to become more like Him, and become more alive yourself? Do you have the courage to shake off those bad habits, or do you just resign yourself to that's just the way I am? He brings new life to all that seek Him. His grace empowers us to become more than we have been, to love more than we have loved, to serve others with joy in His name.