The Vital Power of the Resurrection

Christ’s resurrection is not an event of the past; it contains a vital power which has permeated this world.  Where all seems to be dead, signs of the resurrection suddenly spring up.  It is an irresistible force.  Often it seems that God does not exist: all around us we see persistent injustice, evil, indifference and cruelty.  But it is also true that in the midst of darkness something new always springs to life and sooner or later produces fruit.  On razed land life breaks through, stubbornly yet invincibly.  However dark things are, goodness always re-emerges and spreads.  Each day in our world beauty is born anew, it rises transformed through the storms of history.  Values always tend to reappear under new guises, and human beings have arisen time after time from situations that seemed doomed.  Such is the power of the resurrection, and all who evangelize are instruments of that power.

— Pope Francis, from The Joy of the Gospel, 276