Category: Easter

The night of nights

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The Night of Nights

by Catherine Doherty.

This is the night of nights. This is the apex of the love story. The first part came to us as the cry of a Child. The second, as the hammering and planning of wood by a Carpenter.

The third, as a Voice—picked up by the megaphone of centuries and brought to us: Christ the preacher, in his public life. Next, the sound of whips upon human flesh and of nails entering that flesh. Then in the quiet of that night, flame, fire, and song got together, and suddenly God arose.

Christ is risen! In him is my faith, my love; in him I live.

He sang us a love song from the moment of his birth to the moment of his Ascension—which comes soon—he will leave us tokens of his love: first, himself in the celebration of the Eucharist and in the Blessed Sacrament, and in his priests. For he is so in love with us that, though he went to the Father, he remained with us. Only God can do that.

Night of nights! It must be a night of such a profound love for one another that we know, through the tremendous mystery of faith, that each one I love is the Lord. Christ meets Christ. This tremendous surge of love should so fill us that, at least one night in all the year, we might try to love him and one another as he loves us.

— From Season of Mercy, pp. 117-118, available from MH Publications.

Sinners, wranglers, and weaklings

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

And what is our role in spreading the Good News and how are we to do it, we “sinners, wranglers, weaklings”?  Caryll Houselander, in her down-to-earth way, gives us hope.

The ultimate miracle of Divine Love is this, that the life of the Risen Lord is given to us to give to one another.  It is given to us through our human loves.  It is no violation of our simple human nature.  It is not something which must be cultivated through a lofty spirituality that only few could attain; it does not demand a way of life that is abnormal, or even unusual; it is not a specialized vocation.  It is to be lived at home, at work, in any place, any circumstances.  It is to be lived through our natural human relationships, through the people we know, the neighbors we see.  It is given to us, if we will take it, literally into our own hands to give.  It is the love of human lovers, of man and wife, of parent and child, of friend and friend.

It is through his Risen Life in us that Christ sends his love to the ends of the earth.  That is why instead of startling the world into trembling adoration by manifesting his glory, he sent the woman who had been a sinner to carry the ineffable secret, and sent the two disciples who had been bewildered by their blind inability to reconcile the Scripture and Calvary, and sent the friend who denied him, to give his love to the world, and to give it as simply as a whispered secret or a loaf of bread.  So is it that we, sinners, wranglers, weaklings, provided only that we love God, are sent to give the life of the Risen Christ to the whole world, through the daily bread of our human love.  “It is not for you to know the times and the seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority.  Enough for you, that the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and you will receive strength from him; you are to be my witnesses in Jerusalem and throughout Judea, in Samaria, yes, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:7-8).

Yet the star of hope has risen

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

Kroug icon“Christ descended into ‘Hell’ and is therefore close to those cast into it, transforming their darkness into light.  Suffering and torment is still terrible and well-nigh unbearable.  Yet the star of hope has risen–the anchor of the heart reaches the very throne of God.  Instead of evil becoming unleashed within man, the light shines victorious: suffering–without ceasing to be suffering–becomes, despite everything, a hymn of praise.”  (Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi)

 

Yet the star of hope has risen

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

2009-10-03-the-morning-star-paradox“Christ descended into ‘Hell’ and is therefore close to those cast into it, transforming their darkness into light.  Suffering and torment is still terrible and well-nigh unbearable.  Yet the star of hope has risen–the anchor of the heart reaches the very throne of God.  Instead of evil becoming unleashed within man, the light shines victorious: suffering–without   ceasing to be suffering–becomes, despite everything, a hymn of praise.”  (Benedict XI, Spes Salvi)

Even in our weeping

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I have always been intrigued by the story of Mary Magdalene at the tomb.  Perhaps this is because I have spent too many hours of my life not recognizing the Lord even as He is standing there beside me.  I can get stuck in the mode of: “They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they laid him.”  I too easily focus on that, rather than on having faith that He will never, ever forsake me.  My prayer should instead be: “Lord, give me eyes to see.”

Needless to say, I was struck by this reflection in Magnificat on yesterday’s readings:

Despite the miraculous apparition of two angels sitting in the open tomb, “one at the head and one at the feet where the Body of Jesus had been,” Mary Magdalene remains unmoved, consumed only by her grief.  Two times heaven has to ask her (once via the angels, the second time by the risen Lord himself), “Woman, why are you weeping?” She has come to her own fatalistic conclusion about what happened to Christ–“They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they laid him”–and it is from this pessimism that she must be converted.  When the risen Jesus speaks her name–“Mary!”–the Magdalene, like the Jewish people on the day of Pentecost, was “cut to the heart.”  The risen Christ’s command to “stop holding on” pertains to our preconceptions and stubbornness as well.  Something Greater than our sorrow is now at work in the world.  It is the reason why, even in our weeping, we bend over and peer into the tomb, full of expectation.

First, we must cry out

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Here’s a comforting take on the story of the road to Emmaus by Fr. David May from Madonna House:

The Gospel is the story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus.  They are discussing the events of the Lord’s passion and death when suddenly Jesus comes up and joins them on the way.  They take him for a stranger and are astonished that he seems unaware of what has happened.

Have you ever had that experience?  When it seems that Jesus Christ is the only one who doesn’t know what is happening down here!

“What things?” he asks. “What things?!”

In his wisdom, the Lord wants to draw out of his disciples all the pain and sorrow they are carrying.  It seems that the Lord has more respect and understanding of our human nature than we do ourselves.

He knows our grief; he understands all our suffering.  But he also knows that first we must speak our pain to him.  First, we must cry out.

For how will we be able to hear what he has to offer until we do so?  And he has far more to offer us than mere sympathy for our plight.

Fr. David goes on to speak of what Jesus offers to these disciples in pain, and what He offers as well to us:

He offers them more than sympathy because as the Risen Lord, he can offer them a hope they had not dared to imagine.  He offers them a victory that comes only through suffering and death: Resurrection from the dead.

He will surely come:

In an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, the Lord can reveal himself, and after that, everything is transformed.  In a second, at the breaking of the bread, he is recognizable to his disciples in Emmaus.  And then he vanishes from sight!

This, too, is part of his mystery, of his unfathomable ways.