The message of Easter is courage

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When I taught high school religion, a poster in my classroom read, “If you don’t know what you stand for, you will fall for anything.” This is age-old advice: The Old Testament ethics teacher, Sirach, also stated, “Stand firm for what you know” (Sir 5:12).

More than any other time in our modern history, it is essential that we take time for prayer and adoration to understand what we know, what we stand for, and ask God for the courage to stand firmly for what we believe is right.

The message of Easter has always been one of courage. Jesus stood firmly for what he believed was right. To help himself understand what that was, he spent time in his Father’s presence praying and listening to his Father’s will for him, which culminated in his death on the cross. Even though Jesus begged God to take the cup of suffering from him, God responded that he could, but he would not. He needed Jesus to offer this self-sacrifice so his Holy Spirit would be released and given to us as a helper throughout our lives.

The courage Jesus demonstrated as he stood up and faced his executioners is an example for us of how we must live our lives. We know courage is a virtue, identified as such by Aristotle three-and-a-half centuries before Jesus. St. Paul wrote about courage and St. Thomas Aquinas identified it as a cardinal virtue, which, along with the theological virtues of faith, hope and love, create a formula for living a worthy, adult life.

Catholic author Matthew Kelly states, “Courage is essential for the human experience. It animates us, brings us to life, and makes everything else possible. And yet, courage is the rarest quality of a human person. The measure of your life will be the measure of your courage.”

Protestant theologian Paul Tillich explained, “The power of being is identified with virtue, and virtue consequently, with essential nature. Virtue is the power of acting exclusively according to one’s true nature.” We must each ask what our essential nature is, and whether we have the courage to act in accord with it.

The challenge of Easter, at the conclusion of a meaningful Lent, is whether we have been changed by our self-denial and self-discipline, increasing in virtue throughout the 40 days of our intentional prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Easter is to be the turning point in our Christian journey each year, inviting us to live a more Spirit-filled, virtuous life, in which we become the real presence of Christ to everyone around us. Jesuit Father Peter Lonsdale explains that it is essential for Christians to offer themselves unreservedly into God’s hands, “asking God to shape our lives through our decisions and thus allowing God to bring to fulfillment the creative work that God has already begun in us.”

Determine the ways in which God wishes to use you, and create time and space to say “yes” to his will for you. You may feel you need to attend the sacrament of reconciliation, if you have not already done so during Lent, and ask God to turn your heart in the direction he wishes you to go. Ask for openness to his will and his grace, to hear his voice accurately and for the courage to follow it faithfully.

Soucheray is a licensed marriage and family therapist and a member of St. Ambrose in Woodbury. She holds a master’s degree in theology from The St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity in St. Paul and a doctorate in educational leadership from St. Mary’s University of Minnesota.