Matthew 2:19-20: Rise and Go
Thursday, April 10, 2025
In this Favorite from April 4, 2008, we remember that the Holy Family were refugees in Egypt after the birth of Jesus. We also remember that an angel comes to Joseph with the message that it is time to return to the land of Israel. Today, as we continue to explore how Jesus is the resurrection, we contemplate how our own lives move through times of exile, transfiguration, and return; and just as Mary and Joseph respond to God’s urging, we rise and go when we are called, for we are resurrection people.
We are living through the Resurrection time – the time after Jesus rises from the dead in unity of body and soul and the time that he ascends to heaven. We are a Resurrection people. We are immortal.
From today’s MAGNIFICAT Reflection: Those who bear the sign of immortality are attractive to others. People group around them . . . The Resurrected Lord gives a new lightness of the Spirit . . . Easter’s unity . . . This is a sign that little by little, the spirit of Easter is filling our lives and is pushing out the devil who is division and rivalry, jealousy and hate, the incapacity to carry each other’s weight. The experience of the Resurrection carries a continual note of hope into our lives . . . Hope arises from faith; it is the visibility of faith; it is faith which becomes operative with the present. Hope is life in action which transfigures the present; it does not permit “victory” of nothingness – delusion, a bitter nostalgia, narcissistic self-contemplation, the desire to do without another person. Everything which would be a victory for nothingness is forced out by the victory of Christ. The Spirit of the Risen Lord enters our lives and makes us creators of unity, filled with new creativity and hope for ourselves and therefore for all people. (Monsignor Massimo Camisasca)
We are a Resurrection people. And just as the angel of the Lord appears to Joseph and so many others in scripture, so too do angels appear to us. They bring the message of hope, of courage, of transfiguration. We too, may be transfigured in Christ. We too, can be hope to others. We too, must trust the Lord as did Joseph and Mary. We too can respond to the call of Rise and go!
For we are a Resurrection people.
Tomorrow, what do we do with our anger?
Cameron, Peter John. “Meditation of the Day.” MAGNIFICAT. 4.8 (2008). Print.
Image from: http://russ-ramsey.com/day-20-when-joseph-woke-from-his-dream-reflection-questions-and-art-during-advent/
The Noontimes 