Our Easter Faith

Easter Blessings! Christ our Lord is risen!

The shadows of Lent are past, and the shining Light of Easter is upon us! This Easter Sunday morning as the beams of the rising Sun stream through the clouds of incense over the beautifully flowered Altar during Mass, I once again, I will realize this is but a shadow of the Glory those we love but see no longer now behold.  Resurrection has come!

So, during this Easter Season, dawning today, I want to invite my readers to ponder and appropriate the mystery of Resurrection in both its obvious and not so obvious forms. Such as:

What does Resurrection mean to me?

I mean really, how has Jesus' rising again changed me, or has it?

In what ways have I been and am I being overtaken by its reality?

I am still learning what Resurrection means. Perhaps this excerpt from an essay at Busted Halo can illume our path a little. It opened my eyes a lot.

Father Mychal Judge, Franciscan Friar, who served as chaplain to New York City Fire Department and died in service on September 11, 2001. On his death certificate, Father Judge was listed as “0001”—the first victim of 9/11.

On that fateful day of 9/11, Mychal rushed to be down at the epicenter of the suffering and was offered safe passage by Mayor Giuliani to escape the chaos when all seemed, finally, lost. Mychal, however, refused the offer, saying the he needed to be with his men. He died there, praying with one of the fallen heroes of that day, protecting him with his own body.

This is essentially the Easter message. Our Easter faith teaches us that out of the depths of such great and excruciating suffering, some glimmer of hope shines. There is no darkness great enough that can engulf the light of the Risen Christ. 

This is not, of course, to say that there is any goodness in the suffering and violence itself: Jesus himself said to His Father: “If it be your will, take this cup from me!” We must take care never to glorify, romanticize or exalt suffering as its own end. But it is a great mystery—a paradox—that life can emerge where death abounds.

Easter is essentially this mystery. To say “Christ is Risen” is not simply to say that good will follow from bad. It is rather to say that precisely in and from the hard suffering of loss and diminishment, some measure of God’s consoling presence is found.

Almighty and everlasting God, Who in the Paschal mystery established the new covenant of reconciliation: Grant that all who are reborn into the fellowship of Christ's Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Comments

[luke]

Amen to that.