The Resurrection Community

WORD 2day: Friday, 24th week in Ordinary time 

September 16, 2022: I Corinthians 15: 12-20; Luke 8:1-3

The Readings today point to an identity that is so fundamental to a follower of Christ. The first of all the effects that Christ has on his followers is the Resurrection effect: that is a life filled with hope! If Christ were not raised from the dead, our faith would be in vain - declares St. Paul today. We are filled with a hope so great that nothing, not even death can take away the meaning of our life. 

Secondly, we find today Jesus amidst the first community that he himself had initiated - the Twelve, and some women! That is another Resurrection effect - the fruit of rising above all the pettiness of the world, discarding the divisions, despising the differences of gender or geography, and becoming one community, one people! 'We are all baptised into the one Spirit - Jews or Greeks, free or slaves, we are all filled with the same Spirit', instructs St. Paul ( cf. 1 Cor 12:13). 

Today, let us look at our faith community, the Church, the local church and our own family or religious community: is it one body? is it united in the Risen Lord? is it "following" the Lord, the Risen Lord in every way? Does it have the "mind" of Christ? Are we really Resurrection Community?

One of the infallible signs as we reflect today, has to be - the hope we have in persons: never giving up on persons, never judging persons and never descriminating persons on any count! In a world that is full of expectations and standards of descrimination and division, our challenges is to be this ideal community: the Resurrection community.