{"content":[{"text":"raised him from the dead. By his death he made atonement for the sins of the world \n — \"he nailed them to the tree of the cross\"; by his resurrection he opened the gates \n of death for all men and made them heirs to the eternal life.","bbox":{"left":0.117686,"top":0.076048,"width":0.757515,"height":0.054195999999999994}},{"text":"We need hardly delay to prove the fact of the resurrection of Christ, for without it \n there would have been no Christianity, no Christian Church. In the story of the \n appearance which precedes today's Gospel, we are told how two of Christ's \n disciples were so depressed and disorientated by his death that they were giving up \n all interest in the dead Master and were returning home at the first opportunity (the \n Sabbath, Saturday, had intervened and they could not travel on that day). The \n Apostles were no better since Good Friday. They had remained behind locked \n doors for fear of the Jews. They had no hope left. They too would have left \n Jerusalem that Sunday were it not for the story brought by Mary Magdalene that \n Christ's body had been taken from the tomb. When the risen Christ appeared to the \n ten Apostles (Thomas was absent) they thought he was a ghost, so far were their \n thoughts from a possible resurrection.","bbox":{"left":0.117686,"top":0.143567,"width":0.758963,"height":0.21492100000000003}},{"text":"When the truth sank into their minds, however, they became changed men. After \n Pentecost day they fearlessly proclaimed to the Jews, of whom they had been \n frightened, that Christ whom those same Jews had crucified, had risen and was \n now glorified by the Father. Thousands of Jews in Jerusalem had come to believe \n in Christ, because they were convinced he had risen and was the Messiah and the \n Son of God, as he claimed to be. The four Evangelists testify to the truth of the \n resurrection and we have the exceptional witness of St. Paul whose radical change \n of life can have only one explanation — he saw the risen Christ on the road to \n Damascus.","bbox":{"left":0.117686,"top":0.371692,"width":0.7523550000000001,"height":0.1613389999999999}},{"text":"Of the fact of the resurrection we can have no doubts; Christianity is inexplicable \n without it, and Christianity has existed for almost two thousand years. A more \n important point for consideration today is what this resurrection means to us. \"If \n Christ has not risen,\" says St. Paul (1 Cor. 15:17), \"vain is your faith, for you are \n still in your sins.\" But \"Christ has risen from the dead, the first fruits of those who \n have fallen asleep.\" Our faith then is not in vain, for the founder and foundation of \n our faith is the Word of God who cannot deceive or be deceived, and his \n resurrection is the guarantee of our resurrection. He is the \"first fruits,\" the earnest \n of the full harvest that was to follow after our earthly death. We shall all rise again, \n in glory if we have been faithful during our time on earth, in a less pleasant state, if \n we have not followed Christ here below.","bbox":{"left":0.117686,"top":0.546355,"width":0.7612110000000001,"height":0.19706299999999988}},{"text":"Human life has always been the great enigma for philosophers down through the \n ages. The resurrection of Christ, which causes and guarantees our resurrection, is \n the one and only explanation of that enigma. If death were the end of man, with all \n his gifts of intellect and will; if the grave were to enclose forever this noble being \n whom God has raised above all other earthly creatures and has endowed with \n super-mundane gifts and aspirations, then indeed man's sojourn on earth would be \n an inexplicable enigma. But the gifts God gave to man were not simply to help him \n to make a precarious living and enjoy a fleeting happiness, interspersed with much","bbox":{"left":0.117686,"top":0.756742,"width":0.762267,"height":0.14360099999999998}}],"images_bbox":[],"images_bbox_not_text_overlap":[]}