Faith in the resurrection as a challenge to modern defensive cynicism
Resurrection Sunday morning does not merely represent a chronological event or a dogma to be defended; rather, it marks the beginning of a deep and radical crisis for the human heart. It is a moment that speaks directly to our current malaise, resonating with the symptoms of contemporary anxiety, depression and that sense of isolation that often grips us. The Gospel of John tells us that Jesus, newly resurrected, chooses to appear first to Mary Magdalene, a woman with a complex and troubled history, from whom seven demons had been cast out. In her we can see an immediate reflection of our modern struggles against social anxiety and the stigma of those who feel inwardly fragmented. She is the first aralda of the proclamation of the resurrection, the one who runs to announce life to those who, instead, were immersed in mourning and fear. But right here we stumble upon the first, great stumbling block: unbelief. Those who had lived three years with the master, hearing that He lived, did not believe her.
This rejection is not merely a marginal detail, but the core of a reflection that still shakes the foundations of our existence today: why do we find it so hard to believe in the supernatural, even when it is witnessed to us? To understand this resistance, we can look beyond biblical or traditional theological language and try to call things by names in common modern use today. What Jesus calls “hardness of heart” can be likened to a form of cynicism or defensive skepticism. Beneath this rind often beats the heart of the wounded: the disciples were traumatized, disappointed and guilt-ridden men and women whose unbelief acted as a protective shield against the fear of deluding themselves again, or of being imprisoned and perhaps killed by Jews or Romans, or of having to face their own guilt and shame for abandoning Jesus.
The prison of rationalism and the courage to fly high
After Mary Magdalene, Jesus appears in a different way to two disciples who were going to the fields. They, too, run to announce him to others, to those who out of fear were still locked in a room. This barred room is not only a historical place, but also seems a faithful mirror of modern depressive isolation, where we lock ourselves away for fear of outside judgment, reprisals from the world, and the weight of our own conscience. When Jesus finally appears to the apostles while they are at the table, he rebukes them for their unbelief.
Theirs is an almost justifiable reaction: how can one believe such disruptive news on the word of a woman, moreover with a difficult past, or two anonymous workers returning from the fields? Yet, Jesus defines this resistance as a fault. Our tendency to make everything “natural,” to want to contain everything within the limits of earthly reason, becomes the prison of the human urge to transcend, even as it protects against what we could not control. We justify our unbelief in order to remain on a material level that gives us security, but we risk missing the “trains” that God sends us, those occasions when the supernatural crosses our chronicle. These “trains” sometimes arrive as the thunderous thunder of events beyond the ordinary natural; other times they are camouflaged in the normality of the everyday: an unexpected encounter, an insight that crosses our mind or a subtle hope that opens up just when all seemed lost. Intercepting these signs does not require a special mystical gift reserved for a few, but arises simply from a firm decision to stop justifying one’s blindness and to put faith in God and accept that his thoughts become ours.
Staying “low” protects us from the impossible, gives us the illusion of security, allows us to avoid what is uncomfortable, but prevents us from flying high. God wishes to visit us, and to do so He asks us to allow ourselves to expect the unexpected in the midst of our daily lives. Without this openness, in the daily grind of our duties and struggles, we end up remaining at a lower level, stuck in an existence that may exclude God from the outset
Anatomy of consciousness opens a bridge to the divine
How can we break this pattern of defense? The first step is a willingness to open our eyes to what is happening every day. God is constantly speaking to us and meeting us in every moment of our present, earthly lives. To intercept God’s voice, we are helped by a mindfulness exercise: stopping and “thinking about what we are thinking” to have a deep awareness of it and assess whether it is aligned with God’s thoughts and decide whether to continue putting faith in it. This is not simply a technique for calming stress. It is, rather, an act of will and attention that helps us become aware of our own thoughts, emotions and inner dynamics, those defensive barriers we put up in order not to suffer or succumb. It is the first step in making space for the mystery of faithfulness to God.
This is precisely where a process begins, and we can use a metaphor to describe it: awareness is about seeing that the room of our mind is occupied by the heavy furniture of our automatic and copional thoughts. Psychology alone offers the possibility of seeking and having this awareness, but it cannot offer alternatives for furnishing the room otherwise. It is precisely when the armors are seen that the possibility is created to give us permission to think different thoughts in line with what God says and put faith in them, that is, to be faithful to these new thoughts. Crucially, we can see this moment of suspension (I recognize automatic thoughts) not as a defeat or a barren desert, but as a “sacred space” and the indispensable prerequisite for divine action to be grafted into our minds: if I think new thoughts according to God, choose them and put faith in them, there I meet the Holy Spirit who gives me advice on “how” to do it.
We may not fear this space: it is the necessary gap through which grace can finally act. It is the exact point at which the logicality of the metaphysical can begin to take the place of our mundane old broken synaptic highways.
By recognizing that our cynical thoughts are false, we allow our soul (or spirit), connected with the Holy Spirit, to occupy that space with holy, noble and righteous thoughts. This is where divine action in cooperation with our inner man takes over and what is metaphysical, upon which we can shift our faith, becomes logical. To be present to ourselves in a different way is to get out of the automatism of “reactive rationalism” and allow us to learn to be renewed in the spirit of our mind.
Spirituality thus becomes the logical completion of psychology and biology, not an irrational replacement for it. Faithful and trusting surrender to God’s supernatural action becomes an expression of fidelity to the one who is risen-Jesus. It is a matter of discerning the supernatural occurring within the natural and putting our faith in it. For the ancients, including the Jews, this was the standard situation. For them everything that took place in the natural was the result of the intervention and arrangement of God or the “gods” on duty. For modern men it would be a disposition of the heart that decides to stop justifying its blindness. Only in this way can we stop looking at Mary Magdalene as an unbelievable figure (moreover, that she was a prostitute is not at all supported by the texts) and begin to see her as the model of one who has eyes to see life where others see only death, guilt for past mistakes or disappointment for broken dreams. Her ability to see the Risen One arises precisely from her courage to stop staring at her own inner “death” because of her pain (and perhaps also because of the mark of her seven demons), to turn her gaze toward the life that is present and calls her by name. This change comes about because it responds to a real voice that breaks into the natural; the transition is not an irrational leap, but the transition from the logic of rationalism to the higher logic of resurrection, allowing oneself to think differently and remain faithful to the new and different thoughts.
The action of the Holy Spirit is the engine of renewal
To overcome our weakness, Jesus promised us the Holy Spirit. His presence in us is not a vague influence, but a reality that touches the concrete and material elements of our lives. It is the Spirit of God who gives us the clarity we need to stop justifying our unbelief and testify to the world that Jesus is the King who reigns today, that he has performed wonders and that there is a real alternative to anxiety and darkness. It is the same supernatural and divine alternative offered to us by those who to us and before us bore witness that Jesus rose from the dead. We can experience and recognize that Jesus is God who by his resurrection launched the new creation. We can therefore faithfully tell those we can that the new creation has already broken into our history. This will also enable others to be able to open themselves to the same perspective.
Let us expect the risen Jesus to enter through the closed doors
We are called to a deep examination of conscience: do we want to continue living at a low level, justifying our lack of faith with the excuse of rationality, or do we want to give ourselves permission to fly high? Let us remember the protagonists of that Sunday morning in Jerusalem: Mary Magdalene, with her difficult past, and the two anonymous peasants returning from work in the fields. The Holy Spirit is not looking for spiritual “superheroes,” but faithful disciples of the Lord who want to go beyond their fears and the banality of everyday life to embrace the wonder of a supernaturally natural extraordinary life.
We remember the apostles, locked in that room, paralyzed by fear, guilt and disappointment. That sealed room, where we often protect ourselves even from God with survival strategies, can today be the existential place where our social anxiety, or sense of isolation and fear of judgment, is consumed. The Holy Spirit’s action does not ignore our experience, but if we want it takes the initiative and enters right where we had locked ourselves away, to open us to new perspectives on life.
The power of Jesus’ resurrection
The power of resurrection is available already at this very moment in forms mirroring the situations of the biblical protagonists. The strength to face the prejudice of others or the stigma of social stigma requires the same spiritual power that transformed Mary Magdalene. It is the divine strength to get out of bed when the weight of depression seems to crush us or the courage to leave home after months of isolation. If we explain that not giving in to cynicism is a practical fragment of that great resurrection, then the good news of God’s kingdom becomes a vital urgency for every generation.
We ask for the grace to expect and recognize the traces of the Risen One in the daily routine of our day, to put faith in and faithfully cooperate with the Spirit of God so that others may accept the experience.
Resurrection is a process begun: let us not wait until tomorrow to believe; let us begin today, even in small things, to receive and give proof that Jesus is alive.
We are called to experience divine supernaturalness and faithfully live out the full awareness of its action in us and through us. This cannot be a moral endeavor or a religious duty, but the natural act of inhabiting a dimension that already belongs to us and in which we are called simply to rest: that is, to do what Jesus says, as faithful co-workers carrying out his will on earth.
It is not a duty to become something, but the spontaneous consequence of those who have already discovered that they belong to the new creation.
Our faithfulness to God, which is the only functional response to grace, already enables us to see the invisible, do the impossible and believe the unbelievable.
Maurizio Tiezzi