He is Risen! The Church has now entered the season of Easter, when we celebrate that Jesus Christ has conquered death by his Resurrection from the dead. The liturgical season lasts a full fifty days, from Easter Sunday to Pentecost Sunday. Once the chocolate bunnies have been eaten and the Easter baskets have been put away, however, chances are that we tend to lose sight of the significance of this joyous season. This is a time, above all, to step out of the "tomb" of sin and into the "new life" of communion with God.

Through the sacrament of Baptism, Christians have been mystically drawn into the Paschal Mystery, the saving death and Resurrection of Jesus. St. Paul makes this clear in his letter to the Romans:

How can we who died to sin yet live in it? Or are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life. For if we have grown into union with him through a death like his, we shall also be united with him in the resurrection. We know that our old self was crucified with him, so that our sinful body might be done away with, that we might no longer be in slavery to sin. For a dead person has been absolved from sin. If, then, we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. We know that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has power over him. As to his death, he died to sin once and for all; as to his life, he lives for God. Consequently, you too must think of yourselves as [being] dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus. ( Romans 6:3-11)

These words - along with the rest of the sixth chapter of Romans - are really worth reflecting upon. Baptism transforms us, ending a life of sin and beginning a life of grace. The Catechism of the Catholic Church offers this explanation:

The Paschal mystery has two aspects: by his death, Christ liberates us from sin; by his Resurrection, he opens for us the way to a new life. This new life is above all justification that reinstates us in God's grace, "so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life." Justification consists in both victory over the death caused by sin and a new participation in grace. It brings about filial adoption so that men become Christ's brethren, as Jesus himself called his disciples after his Resurrection: "Go and tell my brethren." We are brethren not by nature, but by the gift of grace, because that adoptive filiation gains us a real share in the life of the only Son, which was fully revealed in his Resurrection. (CCC 654)

Because there is some perhaps-unfamiliar theological vocabulary used in this paragraph, let's recap what the Catechism is saying: By his death on the Cross, Jesus puts to death (forgives) our sins. By his Resurrection, Jesus has also given us a new life of grace. We are thus "justified," or made right with God. This justification is not just a legal transaction with God, but gives us a new relationship with Him: We become his adopted children, brothers and sisters of the risen Lord, by grace.

The phrase "child of God" may bring to mind childish pictures from Sunday school books or porcelain Precious Moments figurines, but becoming a son or daughter of God is the radical transformation at the heart of the Gospel. Jesus Christ, who is the eternal Son of God, became one of us precisely so that we might be raised to this dignity. For all of eternity, God the Father has given life to God the Son. For all of eternity, God the Father and God the Son have known and loved each other with an infinite intensity. For all of eternity, God the Holy Spirit is the fire of love burning between the Father and the Son. We are not children of God by nature, but become children of God when the Holy Spirit unites us to the one-and-only Son of God by nature, Jesus Christ. The second-century St. Irenaeus explained, "For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God." (see CCC 460). This is the indescribable new life that Jesus offers us through faith and Baptism.

How well do baptized Catholics today understand and appreciate this new life? How fully do we appreciate that true joy is found not in reckless sin, but in the reckless love of God?

Recent statistics aren't very promising. A Gallup poll released just before Easter showed that Church membership among all Americans (not just Catholics) has now dropped below 50 percent for the first time in the eighty years that Gallup has been tracking it. Church membership remained fairly consistent from 1937 (73%) all the way to the year 2000 (70%), but has dropped dramatically over the past twenty years to just 47%. Gallup notes that the decline is worse among Catholics than among Protestants:

Among religious groups, the decline in membership is steeper among Catholics (down 18 points, from 76% to 58%) than Protestants (down nine points, from 73% to 64%). This mirrors the historical changes in church attendance Gallup has documented among Catholics, with sharp declines among Catholics but not among Protestants.

Church membership and Mass attendance are, of course, not the only measurements of our faith, but they are absolutely essential, and their decline is a symptom of an overall cultural decline in faith that few of us could deny.

Much ink has been spilled among Catholics in the attempt to diagnose the dramatic decline in Catholic life in recent decades. In my opinion, the best book to understand both the problem and the solution is Sherry Weddell's Forming Intentional Disciples: The Path to Knowing and Following Jesus. In short, we as Catholics need to very intentionally believe in, learn from, and follow the person of Jesus Christ in order to experience the revival - the new life - that we desperately need. We need to open ourselves to the transforming action of the Holy Spirit so that we can be conformed more fully to Jesus himself.

Over the last few days, the words that keep resonating in my mind and heart are the Church must come out of the tomb. We have been given a new life from Christ through Baptism- let's learn to live like it! I think of those words of Jesus when he rose Lazarus from the dead: "Lararus, come out!" (John 11:43) Just as the newly revived Lazarus needed to step out of the darkness of the tomb and remove his burial cloths before he could really experience the newness of life that Jesus had given him, we absolutely must leave behind all of our sin, all of our indifference to Jesus and the Gospel, and all of our mediocrity. Only then will we be fully alive in Jesus Christ and experience the full significance of this Easter season.

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