“We Need a Life that Raises Us From the Dead”

I want to share excerpts from the text we have been working on. It helps me to be reminded of the truth every day by listening to words like these, by being challenged and encouraged by the reality they signify:

" ‘I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die’ [John 11:25]. This, only this, is what we need, what everyone needs. This is the only thing necessary. We need a life that raises us from the dead, from every death, from every face that death and evil take on in our personal life, family, community, and the entire world. All the rest is a thousand things that worry us and make us anxious without being necessary, because they never respond to the true need of the heart, of every heart…

" ‘If Christ is enough, what is all the rest? Hunger, desire, work, politics, passion, sentiments, [concerns about] war: What are all these things?’ [this was a question many people asked]. All of this is longing for Christ, all of this is the concrete face of a cry, of the need for Him, the thirst for Him, the emptiness in life if He is not there. So, in embracing Christ I am not renouncing all of these things; I am not saying that all of this is nothing. I am affirming even more that all of this truly wants to be full of reality. If I do not embrace Christ, if I do not let Christ enter my house, my house remains empty as a home, and nothing has meaning any more, not the table, not the chair, nothing. Acknowledging that all of this is reaching out to Him makes every instant of our daily life the place of the verification of His presence, that He is present."

—Abbot Mauro-Giuseppe Lepori, O.C.S.O. (CL Fraternity Retreat 2022)

[image: “Raising of Lazarus” (1961) by William Congdon]