Dear Friends,

How would you answer if someone were to ask you, "What is the most important doctrine of the whole Church?" Hopefully, you would answer, "The most important doctrine of the whole Church is the resurrection of the dead."

During this Easter season we have been celebrating this wonderful doctrine, this Easter mystery of Jesus Christ's dying and rising. At each Sunday celebration of the Eucharist we profess that "we look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come."

In celebrating Christ's death and resurrection, we must be certain that we also include our own death and resurrection. If we fail to do this, we fail to Believe in the fullness of the Easter mystery.

When St. Paul preached to the Christians living in Corinth about the truth of the dying and rising of Jesus, he was aware that, though these Christians believed in Jesus' rising from the dead, they did not include themselves. Saint Paul reminded them, "If the dead do not rise, neither has Christ risen; and if Christ has not risen, vain is your faith, for you are still in your sin…if with this life only in view, we have had hope in Christ, we are of all the most to be pitied." (I Cor. 15:13,19)

In his teaching, St. Paul is clear in pointing out this inconsistency in these first believers. If we humans believe we die and do not rise, then it makes no sense to believe that Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus is like us in all things but sin. Jesus is the first fruit of our victory over sin and death. His
resurrection is the guarantee of our own resurrection.

We live in an age of a death culture. More than ever, we need to believe in the complete doctrine of the resurrection. If all our striving in our Christian life to promote health and life has been to merely be happy in this world, we are, as St. Paul says, the most foolish and miserable of all people.

During the Easter season we repeat more often the prayer of St. Peter when he and the other disciples were tossed by the angry waves of the sea. As St. Peter, walking on the water, began to sink, he cried out, "Lord save me!" Jesus at once stretched out his hand and took hold of him, "Oh, you of little faith, why did you doubt?"

Yours in St. Benedict,

Abbot Theodore Wolff, O.S.B.