Reflections on the Resurrection Prayer – Week 3
- +Fr Bernard Hayes, CR
Many years ago the late +Fr. Bernie Hayes, CR wrote a booklet reflecting on the words of our Resurrection Prayer. During this Easter Season of the Lord’s Resurrection we wanted to share some excerpts from those reflections with you.
Resurrection Prayer
O Risen Lord,
the way, the truth and the life,
make us faithful followers
of the spirit of your Resurrection.
Grant that we may be inwardly renewed:
dying to ourselves
in order that you may live in us.
May our lives serve
as signs of the transforming power of your love.
Use us as your instruments
for the renewal of society,
bringing your life and love to all,
and leading them to your Church.
This we ask of you, Lord Jesus,
living and reigning with the Father,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever.
Amen
"make us faithful followers"
We who have been trained as leaders are not naturally prone to follow. Here again obedience comes into play. Here too humility enters the picture. There is an admission here that God has room to create in us; that we are not perfect in our following or in anything else; that God truly is the potter and we truly are His clay.
“Following” means relinquishing control. The gospel call to follow is a very radical call. It is bracketed by the condition that I must “leave all things”. It is a call to journey – to set out in the darkness of the future with nothing but my own light and some rather blurry signs to guide me: No certainties; no assurances about anything; stepping into the unknown; walking behind not ahead; trusting that the leader knows where is he is leading me; living faith radically. Can I pray to be a “faithful follower” when my firm (if secret) intent is always to lead?
But I do know the general map of my following. The journey will go from Galilee to Jerusalem to Calvary to Easter. My hope lies in my ability to walk in the light and power of the Resurrection – of that marvelous and wonder-filled event so full of power that it brings order to chaos, life from death, hope from despair. By my vowed and baptismal title, I am called then, to find in the Resurrection a basic need – the need to discover and to live my personal life journey with faith and with confidence; to be a person of hope even in the pain of my on-going creation. I am called to follow Jesus in my acquiescence to the Father’s will for me. Because in that will lie the seeds of my own on-going resurrection. In enlightened faith I follow – and in following I shall arrive.