An old legend from Crusader times tells of a warrior
who, in a reckless moment, and on a wager, accepted a challenge to carry
all the way from Jerusalem to Paris the flame that burned before the
tomb of Christ in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Given the
great distance involved and the formidable obstacles (winds and rains,
rivers, robbers, and marauding armies), it was a very foolish wager, but
he made it nonetheless.
As the story goes, this
tough Crusader soldier who had spent a lifetime proving his prowess,
overcame nearly insurmountable odds and succeeded in carrying the holy
flame all the way from Jerusalem to Paris. But it was a remarkably
changed man who arrived there. All his efforts to protect the
flame from the forces of nature and the assaults of humans – cradling it
and caressing it along the way as a mother would her child - had a
transforming effect on him. The long, demanding journey changed his
heart: now his deepest desire was no longer winning a foolish bet and
making his mark on history, but simply protecting the tiny, fragile
flame. So, it was not a swaggering soldier who arrived in Paris
many months later, flame still burning, but a humble and gentle pilgrim.
It was Holy Saturday and, in an act of prayerful gratitude, he walked
into the great Cathedral of Notre-Dame and lit the Easter fire with his
flame.
Standing next to me is
the paschal candle, our Cathedral’s Easter fire, lit by the Archbishop
last night in total darkness out on the front steps of the Cathedral and
carried into the Cathedral where for some moments it was the only light
in this vast space. Then, slowly, the entire Cathedral was suffused with
light as one person passed onto another the holy flame.
I thought of that old
legend, and found myself praying that, like that tough, seasoned
soldier, our hearts, too, might be changed by our carrying the light and
passing it on to others.
Easter is all about
light: Christ, the light, who from the darkness of the tomb burst forth
into the light of day. Christ, the light, who at a moment in time was
completely overcome by the powers of darkness, but only so that he could
in his very person turn darkness into light, doubt into faith, despair
into hope, hatred into love.
Easter is all about
light. And it’s also all about life – the new and boundless life that
Christ has made possible by his victory over death, the life that is
already ours in the abundant sacramental life of the Church and that
will one day completely overflow in us when the risen and glorious
Christ raises our mortal bodies and makes them like his own in glory.
Now, I know that, for
some, the Resurrection of Christ is not real. It is metaphor, not actual
event – a metaphor for the triumph of good over evil, of life over
death; or it’s a poetic way of saying that Jesus and his teachings are
timeless and enduring, or that his disciples, after he died and was
buried, began to see and experience him in a new way. But, my friends,
we did not come here this morning to celebrate a metaphor. We came here
because we believe - or are at least struggling to believe - the
astonishingly good news proclaimed to those three brave women at the
empty tomb early on that first day of the week: “You seek Jesus of
Nazareth, the crucified. He has been raised. He is not here.
He goes before you into Galilee; there you will see him as he told you.
We need, my friends, on
this Easter day, to hear that amazing news the way those women heard it.
We do. We need to hear it and to be set on fire by it, jolted by it as
if by an electrical charge. The message those women received – that
Jesus was risen – is gospel - Good News - the greatest news of all time,
greater even than the “glad tidings of great joy” proclaimed one night
by angels to shepherds on Bethlehem’s hillside, for in raising Jesus
from the dead God was not only intervening in human history but
transforming human history.
We call the Resurrection
the New Creation, and so we should. God, whose all-powerful Word at the
dawn of creation brought light from darkness and sparked the first
stirrings of life, was doing so again. God who, at the moment the Word
became flesh, embraced our mortal flesh and made it his own, was now
transfiguring that same flesh with glory, a glory that is already ours
and will one day be fully ours!
My friends, the
Resurrection is mystery and miracle, but it is not metaphor. It is also
Mission. That is why, like the crusading knight of the legend and like
those three women at the tomb, we need to carry from this place the
flame that is our belief in the Risen Christ. We need to proclaim that
faith. And how do we do that? Here’s how Carlo Carretto, a favorite
spiritual writer of mine, puts it: “Every time we forgive our enemy,
every time we feed the hungry, every time we defend the weak, we
proclaim our faith in the Resurrection. When we have the courage to
marry, when we welcome a newly-born child, we proclaim it. When we wake
at peace in the morning and sing Gods’ praise at the setting of the sun,
we proclaim it.”
My friends in Christ, we
are Resurrection people. We must keep the flame of faith alive against
some pretty bruising odds and some powerful storms. And as we carry it –
and as far as we carry it - our hearts, like the heart of that knight of
old, will be changed. It is Easter, friends. Christ is risen! May the
flame of faith, and the fire of love that is the Eucharist, burn so
brightly within us that people will know beyond a doubt that Christ is
risen. Risen indeed. Alleluia!
Father Michael G. Ryan
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