Resurrection Is Possible Now
Friday, April 10, 2026
Father Richard describes how it’s possible to experience resurrection through experiencing God’s love:
We don’t need to wait for death to experience resurrection. We can begin resurrection today by living connected to God. Resurrection happens every time we love someone even though they were not very loving to us. At that moment we have been brought to new life. Every time we decide to trust and begin again, even after repeated failures, we are resurrected. Every time we refuse to become negative, cynical, or hopeless, we are experiencing the Risen Christ. We don’t have to wait for it later. Resurrection is always possible now.
The resurrection is not Jesus’s private miracle; it’s the new shape of reality. It’s the new shape of the world. It’s filled with grace. It’s filled with possibility. It’s filled with newness.
The resurrection is not a miracle story to prove the divinity of Christ, something that makes him the winner. It’s a storyline that allows us all to be winners. ALL! No exceptions! There’s no eternal death for anybody: All are invited to draw upon this infinite Source, this infinite Mystery, this infinite Love, this infinite Possibility. Spiritually speaking, we live in a world of abundance, of infinity, but most of us walk around operating in a world of scarcity.
And so we hoard it—Spirit, Love, Life—to ourselves. We hoard grace and we hoard mercy. We don’t allow ourselves to be conduits through which it pours into the world. Truly, the only way we can hold onto grace, mercy, love, joy—or any spiritual gift—is to give them away consciously and intentionally. If we stop acting as a conduit, we lose them ourselves. That’s why there are so many sad, bitter, and angry people. Disconnected from God, we choose death and contribute to negativity, cynicism, anger, and even the oppression of other races and religions. [1]
I believe the meaning of the resurrection of Jesus is summed up in the climactic line from the Song of Songs: “Love is stronger than death” (8:6). In Christian art, the risen Christ often holds a blank, white banner; if that banner should say anything, it should say: “Love will win!” Love is all that remains. Love and life are finally the same thing, and we know that for ourselves once we have walked through death.
Remember, Love has you. Love is you. Love alone, and your deep need for love, recognizes love everywhere else. Remember that you already are what you are seeking. Any fear “that your lack of fidelity could cancel God’s fidelity, is absurd” (Romans 3:3), says Paul. Love has finally overcome fear, and your house is being rebuilt on a new and solid foundation. This foundation was always there, but it took you a long time to find it, for “It is love alone that lasts” (1 Corinthians 13:13). All you have loved in your life and been loved by is eternal and true. [2]
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John Chaffee
1.
“Spirit is always present, just as the sun is always shining above the clouds.”
– Dan Millman, American Author
This felt poetic and true.
Whatever Spirit is, it is always present and just beyond our perception.
2.
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”
– Carl Rogers, American Psychologist
This is something I think about often. None of us can change until we have a sense that we are unconditionally loved as we are, and that includes even ourselves.
Until we accept ourselves as we are, we are still trying to change a false version of ourselves, a version of ourselves that doesn’t really exist anyway.
We have to start with reality. We have to begin with who we are in this exact moment, with all the warts, memories, scars, humors, faults, strengths, sins, and glories. That is the whole person, that is the person who actually exists.
I think this is the wisdom of grace. Grace takes us as we are. However, in religious circles, we feel as though we must change who we are to then warrant that same grace.
Fortunately, after enough failed attempts at changing ourselves, grace interrupts those attempts and tells us that even if we never change, we are still loved.
3.
“Bidden or not bidden, God is Present.”
– Carl Jung, Swiss Psychotherapist
Apparently, this was written above Carl Jung’s doorway.
It is probably another way of saying the first quote from Dan Millman today.
However, the difference is that here the question is not about one’s ability to see the Spirit, but whether someone has asked God to be present. It leads me to think that whether a person is a theist or an atheist, it does not matter; God is always present.
4.
“Throughout the time of my showings, I wished to know what our Beloved meant. More than fifteen years later, the answer came in a spiritual vision. This is what I heard. “Would you like to know our Lord’s meaning in all this? Know it well: love was his meaning. Who revealed this to you? Love. What did he reveal to you? Love. Why did he reveal it to you? For love. Stay with this, and you will know more of the same. You will never know anything but love, without end.”
– Julian of Norwich, English Mystic
This might be one of the best sections from Julian’s Revelations of Divine Love. It comes at the very end of her infamous book.
I think what draws me to Julian’s insights is the absolute primacy of the Love of God.
Everything is created by, for, and through Divine Love. All that is good, beautiful, and true is an expression of that same Love. All that is wrong, ugly, and false will be made right by Love.
And, for our purposes now, Love is simply another name for God.
5.
“Spiritual maturity begins when we choose to bow before something greater than ourselves rather than to give in to self-destructive tendencies.”
– Unknown
It is when we begin to live by a standard higher than ourselves, and, dare I say, even higher than the surrounding culture, that we enter into spiritual maturity.
For many people, their highest ethic lies within themselves; for others, their morality is defined by the social majority. However, there is something even larger than the surrounding culture or social majority: the infinite mystery we call “God.”
