MARCH 11th SPAIN

The Force of the Resurrection
Selections from the homilies of the Cardinal Archbishop of Madrid, in La Amudena Cathedral

by Antonio María Rouco Varela

The assassin nihilism, from which the terrorist attacks draw sustenance, is not the last word on human existence. Only the senseless, those who are blinded by rage and violence, those who live in opposition to God, consider death the final point of human existence.
God has not created us for death, but for immortal life, that flows inexhaustibly from the Resurrection of Christ. Terrorism can destroy our life and tear away those we love the most; it can plunge us into the deepest and unexplainable grief, but it can never take away our certainty of the fact that the death of Christ, who died for all and for each individual human being, has opened the doors of a hope that draws sustenance, even against every hope, from the Life that comes to us from God.
The contempt of God, the negation of His true being and of His transcendence, the rejection of this loving truth, turn against man in attitudes of hatred and violence that can lead to perverse crimes such as those we see in the terrorist acts.
Christ teaches us to live in an attitude of expectation and hope–that is, attentive to the hour of our death, which is always uncertain. With this teaching, Jesus reminds us that man depends on his Lord and awaits Him; that he is not his own master, but a servant who keeps his flanks girded and his lamps lit so he can serve his Lord as soon as He comes and calls him. Forgetting this attitude means raising ourselves up as lords and masters of ourselves and of our neighbor. The direct consequence is subjugating others, dominating and mistreating them, as Jesus said in another parable. Those who live this way will soon forget their own destiny, and will behave as enemies of their brothers and mock eternal salvation.
May this Eucharist draw us all together in the charity of Christ so that we can love as He Himself loves us and be witnesses of His love to all men who suffer the consequences of sin–today and on this occasion, with extreme vigor and emotion with the over two hundred wounded who are still in the hospitals of Madrid–so that Christ’s love may be able to convert the hearts of the wicked and so that this world may be renewed by the only force capable of making everything new: the power of the Resurrection.
(March 16th)

“ Murderers, as you know, do not have eternal life in them”. In the face of the terrorist attacks, so terrible, in Madrid, it would be licit to paraphrase in this way the verse from Saint John’s first letter: the terrorist carries within himself the seed of eternal death. To hate your brother is to be a murderer.” The seed of hate always works as the inspiration and the final and decisive motivation in the strategy of terrorism. The terrorists have set out to attack and damage deeply the common weal, the concord and peace of Spaniards, and, at the same time, achieve one of their most important objectives: that of gradually and continually undermining the moral and spiritual foundations upon which our societies and our states of Christian roots are founded: that is, the affirmation of the inviolable dignity of each human being from the moment of his conception to that of his natural death, the integrity of the fundamental rights inherent in him and the unanimous understanding of the common good.
“ Respond to blind violence and inhuman hate with the fascinating power of love. Overcome hostility with the force of forgiveness. Keep far away from every form of excessive nationalism, from racism and intolerance. Testify with your life that ideas are not imposed, but proposed. Don’t ever let yourselves be discouraged by evil!” (John Paul II, meeting with the youth of Madrid, May 3, 2003)
(March 24th)