Without Easter, We're History | Carl E. Olson
How different would our lives be if there had been no Redemption and no Resurrection?
• Readings for The Resurrection of the Lord, The Mass of Easter Day
“Let each of us consider how different the history of humanity would be”, wrote the French theologian Réginald Marie Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. (1877-1964) in Our Savior and His Love For Us (Herder, 1951), “and how different our lives would be if there had been no Redemption and no Resurrection.”
Consider what it would have been like if Mary Magdalene, arriving at the tomb, had found Jesus’ cold, still body just as she expected to.
Imagine for a moment how the disciples, knowing that Jesus remained dead, would have lived the rest of their lives: broken, confused, bitter, scattered.
The band of disciples that had followed Jesus would have dissipated; the core of the apostles would have likewise faded away. The winds of time and the dust of history would have mercilessly eroded the once promising and startling landscape promised by Jesus of Nazareth.
How different would our lives be?
I don’t think we can even begin to fathom the answer.
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