While Christmas seems to be the
Christian holy day that gets all of our attention in our modern world,
especially the message of Christmas that our commercial, secular world want to
tell, it is Easter that is really at the heart of what we believe as
Catholics. The Triduum of masses, of
Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday, are called the
culmination of our Church’s liturgical year.
Holy week and our celebration of Easter morning mass today connects the
cross of Jesus to his resurrection, a connection that we need to make in order
to truly understand what our faith is all about.
Last night we had our Easter Vigil
mass. The symbol of that mass is so
striking. Diane, Mary Sue, and Helen
were remarking to me how especially for children, sitting in the dark church
with the lights from the candles penetrating the darkness around us is such a
strong message that will stay in the memory bank of a child throughout his
lifetime. The Easter fire starts out in
front of the church, symbolizing the light of Christ that is brought into our
world and into our lives in our very special way through his death and
resurrection. We have our candles lit by
the light of Christ, symbolizing the source of the true light for us in our
lives.
Mary Magdalene was still in the
darkness of night when she came to the tomb that morning. You can just imagine the spiritual darkness
that consumed her that morning that overshadowed the darkness of the
night. Full of remorse and pain, anger
and frustration, she now believes that our Lord’s body had been stolen from the
tomb. It was bad enough that he was put
to death; now his body could not even be anointed. This is a first sign for Mary Magdalene, for
Peter and the beloved disciple, of knowing that something very special and very
unique was going on . But they still no
idea what all of this was about, about the full implications that the
resurrection would have on their lives and their faith.
There is a lot for us to figure out as
well, isn’t there. I think a lot of us
have taken our faith for granted, we have taken for granted the religious
freedom we have in our country to practice our faith. Maybe what is going on in the world and in
our country should be a wake up call for us.
And even though it is Easter when we celebrate our Lord’s resurrection,
we can never forget that it is intrinsically tied to the cross, to the
sufferings that Jesus endured on the way to his death and resurrection. And although we will have 50 days of the
Easter season up until the celebration of Pentecost on May 27, it looks like we
as Catholics will still have our crosses to bear as we need to stand up for our
faith and for the freedom to practice our faith in the world. Indeed, in order for us to truly understand
the light of the resurrection, we in turn must be lights shining in the
darkness of our world. For these next
weeks during the Easter, we will ponder what the resurrection of Jesus really
means to us, we will ponder what it really means to live the resurrection in
our lives.
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