It is not surprising that the first reaction of the disciples to the report of the Resurrection was not joy, relief, gladness and rejoicing. The women who came to the tomb to anoint Jesus’s body were told by the ‘young man dressed in white’: ‘He has been raised; he is not here’. And they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid’ (Mark 16: 5-8). St Luke says that when the women later reported to the Apostles what they had seen and heard, ‘these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them’ (Luke 24: 11).
In all the Resurrection appearances in the Gospels there is this mixture of belief and unbelief, of slow recognition and incredulity, of being sure but not yet sure. He was the same and yet transformed. They hesitated; it was all too good to be true. The two disciples on the road to Emmaus did not recognise him until he broke the bread for them, and then he vanished from their sight. Later, when they were having their breakfast of fish and bread by the lakeside, St John says: ‘None of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?”, because they knew it was the Lord’ (John 21: 12).
If our experience of the Risen Christ is unlike that of the Apostles, it is much nearer to that of St Paul. He knew how the story had ended. He had heard, like us, that Jesus had been crucified. And he had also heard, like us, the report that Jesus had risen from the dead. But he resisted this, fiercely, passionately, so that he pursued the followers of Jesus even to death. Then suddenly the light broke in on him too. He was blinded, literally and metaphorically, dazzled by the light that shone on his eyes and in his mind. ‘Who are you, Lord?’ … ‘I am Jesus who you are persecuting’. The crucified, risen and glorified Jesus identified himself with those whom Paul was persecuting – and therefore also with all of us. Instantly, he recognised Jesus as Lord, and his life could never be the same again.
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Colossians 3
Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us, therefore, celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Corinithians 5
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“It is not for man to seek, or even to believe in God. He has only to refuse to believe in everything that is not God. This refusal does not presuppose belief. It is enough to recognize, what is obvious to any mind, that all the goods of this world, past, present, or future, real or imaginary, are finite and limited and radically incapable of satisfying the desire which burns perpetually with in us for an infinite and perfect good… It is not a matter of self-questioning or searching. A man has only to persist in his refusal, and one day or another God will come to him.”
—Simone Weil, the great French Jewish mystic who died in 1943 at the age of 34, On Science, Necessity and the Love of God, edited by Richard Rees, London, Oxford University Press, 1968.
“The concept of ‘hidden God’ (Deus absconditus) and the image of a weak or absent deity in history have been the subject of philosophical and theological debate after the tragedy of the Shoah. One question in particular has emerged: ‘Why did God allow Auschwitz?’… Rabbi Richard L. Rubenstein (1924- ) has written that the Holocaust has challenged the content of the Biblical covenant, together with the concept of divine omnipotence. The philosopher Emil Fackenheim (1916-2003) in his work has emphasized that the traditional philosophical and theological categories are insufficient to understand the Holocaust.” —Alberto Castaldini, The Hidden God and History: Philosophical and Theological Perspectives on the Holocaust, “Babeş-Bolyai” University – Cluj-Napoca, Romania, Faculty of European Studies, Ph.D. Dissertation, 2012
“When in Matthew’s account the ‘whole people’ say: ‘His blood be on us and on our children’ (27:25), the Christian will remember that Jesus’ blood speaks a different language from the blood of Abel (Heb 12:24): it does not cry out for vengeance and punishment; it brings reconciliation. It is not poured out against anyone; it is poured out for many, for all. ‘All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God… God put [Jesus] forward as an expiation by his blood’ (Rom 3:23, 25). Just as Caiaphas’ words about the need for Jesus’ death have to be read in an entirely new light from the perspective of faith, the same applies to Matthew’s reference to blood: read in the light of faith, it means that we all stand in need of the purifying power of love which is his blood. These words are not a curse, but rather redemption, salvation. Only when understood in terms of the theology of the Last Supper and the Cross, drawn from the whole of the New Testament, does this verse from Matthew’s Gospel take on its correct meaning.”
― Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Entrance Into Jerusalem to the Resurrection



Why Is Jamie Dimon Still On The NY Fed Board?
What to do with Jamie Dimon? The CEO and Chair of JPMorgan Chase has tried so hard in the past several years to seem the “good banker.” He is so charming and gracious, yet all the while lobbying, cajoling, pushing, and wheedling to eviscerate any semblance of real reform on Wall Street. He shrugged off the cataclysm of 2008 as just something that happened, like the weather—no need for any structural reform.
Now the chickens have come home to roost—at least 2 billion of them—and it is clear that Chase is like every other big financial institution with distorted incentives. Thanks to a backstop of a federal guarantee, these gigantic institutions get to keep all the upside of crazy bets while the government gives them all the downside protection they need. Earlier this year, Dimon pooh-poohed concerns about the risks his traders were taking. Did Dimon not understand those risks, not care to know about them, or actually mislead the public about them?
But it isn’t so much money, they cry! True, in the context of Chase’s balance sheet, a $2 billion loss can be absorbed. But it shows once again the impossibility of trusting the banks in the absence of structural reform and regulation to control their willingness to take almost unmitigated risk. Of greater significance than the size relative to Chase’s balance sheet is that the loss was in a relatively stable market in which most people are finding it easy to trade. Imagine if the market had been choppy—the losses could have been even more gargantuan—and if several institutions had been in the same position, then the aggregate effect could have become once again cataclysmic.
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