Reflections on The Resurrection

Week of 4/6-11/2025:
Reflections on the Resurrection
& the Antichrist

4/12/2026

This is a summary of the previous week’s daily meditations. Some are written by Matthew Fox (MF) and some are written by his colleague, Gianluigi Gugliermetto. (GG) You can click on any title to view the DM in its entirety. …

April 6, 2026: Mechtild of Magdeburg on Undergoing “Our Easter” (MF)

Words from Mechtild for Easter: God speaks:/When your Easter comes/I shall be all around you,/I shall be through and through you/And I shall steal your body/And give you to your Love.*

All her life, Mechtild kept a journal, and her spiritual director, a Dominican, urged her to publish it. Years ago, in 1982, one of Matthew’s students, Sister Sue Woodruff, wrote an excellent book called Meditations with Mechtild of Magdeburg, that laid out the essence of Mechtild’s teachings using the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality as a format.

Easter, or the Resurrection, pertains to the Via Creativa, and the Via Transformativa puts our creativity to the best work possible: Birthing healing, celebration, justice-making and compassion into the world.
Mechthild of Magdeburg | Life and Teachings | The Mystic Who Saw God in Flowing Light

“Mechthild of Magdeburg | Life and Teachings | The Mystic Who Saw God in Flowing Light.” Notebook2061

April 7, 2026: The Resurrection in Emily Dickinson, Jung, & Steven Herrmann (MF)

In his excellent book on Emily Dickinson: A Medicine Woman for Our Times, Jungian analyst Steven Herrmann was moved by Dickinson’s statement, “Twas just this time last year, I died,” Hermann talks about the death and resurrection experience of Emily as a “trans-psychic experience.”

He shares his own poem about Resurrection. Here is a portion of it: To suffer with Christ/Means that we too are in pursuit of the Light…./Christ must be reborn in the Soul—/Must endure the torment of his Crucifixion in our careers/If we are to realize the meaning of the Resurrection ourselves.//It is our callings that make this Transfiguration possible in us;/It is also our vocations/That lead Christ to be Crucified and Resurrected again/Within us.

April 8, 2026: Evil, Chaos & Antichrist at Home & Abroad Under Trump (MF)

We are all reeling from Trump’s Easter threat to “destroy an entire civilization.” Even die-hard MAGA spokespeople are waking up to the insanity.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Trump loyalist for years who broke with him over the Epstein horrors, responded, calling him “unhinged,” “insane,” “not a Christian,” and “evil.” She also said that if Congress does not invoke the 25th amendment, they are “complicit” in the genocide of the Iranian people that is unfolding.

Another longtime ally of Trump, Piers Morgan, said: “This is a brazen pre-admission of genocide against the Iranian people, which would obviously be a war crime.” Chaos and evil are central to the archetype of the “Anti-Christ,” and both are clearly on full display.

Senator Bernie Sanders shares Pope Leo’s call for peace and against
numbing to war and violence. Posted on X.com.

April 9, 2026: Lessons from the Stories of the Resurrection of Jesus, part 1 (GG)

In the Gospels, the stories of the resurrection differ quite a bit. Were the women who went to Jesus’ tomb early in the morning one, two, or three? Did they meet one or two angels? Did they speak with the angels or with Jesus himself?

Did they run away in shock and not talk to anybody, or did they run to the male disciples to announce the good news. Did Jesus appear first to Peter or to Mary Magdalene?

GG’s take on this is that tragic events tend to stick in memory with uncanny precision, but unexpected, life-altering events of a good kind are often described differently by different people. Yet each of these different versions are true to the one who remembers.

April 10, 2026: Lessons from the stories of the Resurrection of Jesus – part 2 (GG)

We live today in an era in which end-of-the-world fantasies are very much in vogue again, especially with the American secretary of war connecting the destruction of Iran with the second coming of Jesus.

The resurrection spoken of in the New Testament was primarily a vindication of the oppressed. It was hoped that the poor and humble who confided in God would not be destroyed together with their arrogant leaders.

The fact that Jesus was seen alive after his death by many people suggests that his death was unjust and that the powers-that-be who decreed his execution are deeply unjust and deserve to see their own tragic end.

“Angel of the Resurrection.” Stained glass by Louis Comfort Tiffany. Wikimedia Commons.

April 11, 2026: Lessons from the Stories of the Resurrection of Jesus – part 3 (GG)

What kind of body the risen Christ had was a question raised early on. Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, speaks of Jesus’s “spiritual body.” In the Gospel of John, the body is said to go through walls.

The Gospel of Luke insists he was not a phantom in his resurrected form, while both Luke and John say that after his resurrection he could eat and drink with his disciples. It is interesting to note that Christ still had his wounds, even in his resurrected body.

Finally, something that is very notable is the fact that often Christ was not recognized. The disciples recognized him only after a long journey, when they broke bread together.

*Sue Woodruff, Meditations with Mechtild of Magdeburg.

**Steven Herrmann, Emily Dickinson: A Medicine Woman for Our Times.
Banner image: The Blessing of Light. Photo by Cynthia Greb. Used with permission.

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