By Sister Doreen, SSJD
“Here is the greatness and all the unimaginable splendor of the Easter mystery – here is the ‘grace’ of Easter which we fail to lay hands on because we are afraid to understand its full meaning. To understand Easter and live it, we must renounce our dread of newness and freedom!” (Seasons of Celebration by Thomas Merton).
The new life of Easter is about being welcomed into a living resurrection experience. Do we ponder not only Jesus’ resurrection and the disciple’s resurrection experience but our own resurrection experiences, nature’s resurrection story? Has there been times when new life burst forth from our own darkness and hopelessness? Have we named these experiences as our own resurrection moments? Have we opened our hearts to deeply experience “O Lord … you have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, so that my soul may praise you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you for ever” (Psalm 30:11).
Sometimes it is hard to dive into life, to live a resurrection experience in the midst of a dark season or circumstance in life. It seems more like falling, and I have come to believe we have to keep falling until we hit bottom and discover that we fall indeed into the hollow of God’s hands! This is true because we know that God has the whole world held in the hollow of God’s hands, and that includes us, you and me! At times like this we are held there in Love to rest a while before we start walking – before we continue to make the road by walking. Until we can look back and see that within the dark experience we have passed through there is a resurrection moment. It is a time when our mourning is turned into dancing or at least into a new place of possibilities.
Easter is a celebration of our own living, loving, faith in a risen and living and loving Christ – an Easter faith that expresses itself in love, in seeing others and everything around us as Christ – Christ in the stranger’s guise. Easter is joy in God, joy in God that is a freedom that lifts us in faith and in hope above the bitter struggles of life. Easter is about other people and everything in this stranger’s guise – as Christ in a stranger’s appearance – who is walking a road of trials, suffering, enduring crucifixion and in the end, through our belief in God’s promises, into new life. The gift of an Easter faith calls us through our partnership, connection, and friendship with God to transform the darkness into light, suffering into joy, death into life. God with us, gifts us with this. It’s ours for the taking! We make the road by walking it and along the road we do begin to see, more and more clearly, all the little moments of life as full of little resurrections.
“I am with you and I will never leave you” is a powerful promise of unwavering presence, (Hebrews 13:5, Deuteronomy 31:6) as God’s assurance of constant support. It is a joy that can never be snatched away, a peace the world cannot give. It is a gift to everyone in every age. Free for the taking! We are welcomed into an intimate relationship of kinship with God. God is present in the turmoil and challenges of our own lives, in our own time and circumstances, in all the seasons of our life. There is no escaping the fact that all our thoughts about God will to some extent reflect our own limitations and weaknesses, our hopes and fears. Easter offers us an opportunity to step into something new and free, to surrender our dread of newness and freedom. Easter – Love still reigns, and lovingly and tenderly draws us to seek gradually to be shaped by the words of scripture, by silent reflection and prayer, by a loving community as we seek to know more clearly, love more dearly, and follow more nearly day by day. Easter, a transforming and living God has entered completely into the human condition, the heart of God is made accessible; we are God’s home. Easter calls us to seek deeper understanding, by pondering and questioning, to seek a more intimate relationship and freedom: a freedom with ourselves, with others, with the world and the cosmos – with the presence of God alive and amongst us, day by day.
Easter is also a celebration of our realization that now Jesus’ work, God’s work, continues through our human hands and feet. We have been given the blessed bread, Jesus broken body for humanity so that we might become his risen body in the world. This is made so clear in the story of the Road to Emmaus, as the two disciples walked the road with the stranger, invited that stranger to a meal when they reached their home, and in the breaking of the bread, sharing a meal, their eyes were opened! And they recognized Jesus. As we ponder of own life, perhaps we discover that there have been times when we have walked with Jesus the road to Emmaus. Open our eyes O Christ that we may discern you in the people we meet, the meals we share, the words we read and in the solitude of our own hearts.
God is poised ready to fill us with new life and love. God is not only the ground of our being but also a spring ready to well up inside us – new life waiting to come forth. It is often blocked by the sludge of our life – a sludge formed of all those attitudes that close us in on ourselves: our self-absorption, self-justification, self-pity and self-seeking at the expense of others. Taking time to acknowledge the sludge, doing the hard work of letting go of the sludge – as we turn to look at God who is looking at us, this opens a way for the spring of God’s spirit, a green and juicy spirit, to well up inside. God’s friendship makes it possible for that spring to flow, green and juicy in our own lives. For this I am and for this I long!
“O Holy Spirit, giver of life and light, disclose to us thoughts higher than our own thoughts, prayers better than our own prayers, powers beyond our own powers, that may spend and be spent in the ways of love and goodness after the perfect image of Jesus Christ our Lord.” Richard Harris
Easter opens the door, calls for a life of action – perhaps even daring action – for God and for the work God wants to accomplish on Earth.
I found myself pondering “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into our heart the things which God has prepared for those who love God” and so end this reflection with a hymn #548 in Common Praise, Anglican Church of Canada.
“Eye has not seen, ear has not heard what you have ready for those who love you.
Spirit of love, come, give us the mind of Jesus, teach us your wisdom, O Lord.
When pain and sorrow weigh us down, be near to us, O Lord,
forgive the weakness of our faith and bear us up within your peaceful word.
Eye has not seen, ear has not heard what you have ready for those who love you.
Spirit of love, come, give us the mind of Jesus, teach us your wisdom, O Lord.
Our lives are but a single breath; we flower and we fade.
Yet all our days are in your hands, so we return in love what love has made.
Eye has not seen, ear has not heard what you have ready for those who love you.
Spirit of love, come, give us the mind of Jesus, teach us your wisdom, O Lord.
To those who see with eyes of faith, you, Lord, are ever near,
Reflected in the faces of all the poor and lowly of the world.
Eye has not seen, ear has not heard what you have ready for those who love you.
Spirit of love, come, give us the mind of Jesus, teach us your wisdom, O Lord.
We sing a mystery from the past in halls where saints have trod,
Yet ever new the music rings to Jesus, Living Song of God.
Eye has not seen, ear has not heard what you have ready for those who love you.
Spirit of love, come, give us the mind of Jesus, teach us your wisdom, O Lord.
Yes! Yes! “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you” Isaiah 60:1.