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Easter Sunday
Those who know me at all well, know that I’m not a moviegoer. I could count on one hand the movies I’ve seen in the past five years. It’s not a matter of principle, I assure you; it’s just a fact -- a result, I suspect, of my curious addiction to work. Or maybe it’s just a case of misplaced priorities. Whatever the case, you’ll probably think it strange that I went to a movie a couple of weeks ago – smack in the middle of Lent – when some people swear off movies altogether! But the movie I saw was worth breaking my movie fast over. The movie was Of Gods and Men. If you saw it, you’ll know why I say that. It’s the true story of a group of French Trappist monks who, back in 1996, brought the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus very much to life at their outpost monastery in North Africa. For me, watching the film was like living through Holy Week and Easter in two hours. All the great moments were there, as those monks made their own journey to Jerusalem: a journey of choices, killingly hard choices about faithfulness and responsibility. With their lives threatened by hostile political forces, should they remain with the people to whom they had devoted their lives or should they return home to France and to safety? Their journey took them to the Last Supper and to the Garden of Gethsemane, too, although the order was reversed in the film. First came a terrible, lonely, agonizing struggle for clarity and for courage on the part of the monks. It was a deeply personal, self-defining, life-and-death struggle for each of them – a personal struggle, but by no means an isolated one. And out of the sweat of struggle came decision, and then a most serene and unexpected peace: quiet, transparent joy around a supper table where the dreaded cup of bitterness turned into the sweet wine of gladness, and the personal terrors of each of those brothers turned into a solid, shared resolve. There was the washing of the feet, too, at that supper, as the Father Prior, the altogether remarkable leader of the community, showed the way, not by any words he spoke or orders he gave, but by the humble reverence he paid to his brothers as he, in effect, knelt before each of them to listen, to learn, and to discern. Then came the road to Calvary -- painful beyond words and violent, for sure, but strangely peaceful, too, because the road that led the monks to their death was paved by pardon and forgiveness. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” was seldom, if ever, more powerfully represented. And Easter? Easter was there, too, but was largely left to the imagination of the viewer. There was no empty tomb, no walking through locked doors, no reassuring appearances to frightened friends, no manifestations of glory -- only a steady march toward a luminous, eternal vanishing point that signaled death but was full of the promise of life, life for some very human yet very holy monks who, to the end, witnessed to their faith in Jesus by refusing to meet hatred with anything but love, violence with anything but blessing. For me it also promised life to anyone who would choose to walk that same path. And that was where Easter entered the picture. My friends, Easter celebrates the greatest, most pivotal moment in all of human history, but if Easter remains just an event in history, it loses its meaning and its power. In raising to life the dead and mangled body of Jesus, God was also offering life to everyone down through the ages who would be willing to do as Jesus did: refuse the ways of hatred and violence and walk the path of peace and love. And that’s where we come in. Every one of us, in one way or another, has to deal with the scars of hatred and violence. We have either inflicted those scars on others, or they have been inflicted on us. Perhaps both. No matter. Jesus, in embracing the cross, took upon himself, in one incredible act of love and forgiveness, every possible expression of human hatred and sinfulness. And in raising him from the dead, God not only filled him with life: God also made life possible -- the fullness of life -- for everyone who would follow in his steps. That’s exactly what those monks did when they made the choice to follow the way of Jesus, and it’s what we are all called to do. The monks could have chosen a far easier path. And the path they did choose was not without some very weighty questions: What would be the value of sacrificing their lives? What would their deaths ultimately mean Would their witness to the Gospel really make a difference in a world hopelessly torn by violence? Shortly before he died, the Father Abbot faced those questions head-on. “Obviously,” he wrote, “my death will appear to confirm those who hastily judge me naïve or idealistic (‘Let him tell us now what he thinks of his ideals!’).” But then he added a note to those he knew would kill him: “And to you, my last-minute friend, who will not have known what you were doing, this message is for you. In God’s face, I see yours. May we meet again as happy thieves in Paradise, if it please God, the Father of us both.” Dear friends, all this has meaning for us. Look around at the sorry landscape of this world of ours where terrorists strike or threaten to, where greedy economics hurt and cripple, where families struggle and sometimes collapse, where even the Church we love stumbles and falls. These are realities we all have to deal with, but through them we look to Jesus who in one perfect act of selfless self-giving gained victory over evil and assured us of that same victory if we would but walk where he walked, walk where those brave monks walked. If we do, death will not have the last word for us – any more than it did for them. Easter will have the last word. Easter will be the last word! As we stand together in a few moments to profess our faith, let us allow the risen Jesus to lead us from any darkness that holds us in its grip into his glorious light: light that shines in the darkness, light no darkness can overcome! Father Michael G. Ryan |
