In the year 1941, while German bombs were raining down on London, a
gifted spiritual writer and mystic, Caryll Houselander, published a
book she entitled, This War Is the Passion. She saw in the daily
agonies endured by the British people during the Blitz the ongoing
passion of Christ – his suffering in the members of his Body. And
how right she was. And the suffering goes on, doesn’t it? The
passion. At this moment, the attention of the world is directed
toward the horrific war in Ukraine, and the same can be said about
it as Caryll Houselander said about the London blitz. This war is
the passion. Christ is being crucified again in Ukraine!
It seems almost
incongruous to be celebrating Easter while that cruel and unjust war
is taking its grim toll, doesn’t it? But the truth is that we need
to celebrate it more than ever. As we seek hope in the face of great
desolation and light in the midst of darkness, we need to fix our
eyes on Jesus who has triumphed over death.
Standing next to me
is the paschal candle, 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, as we passed the light one to another, the
entire Cathedral began to glow with a holy light.
This Easter I find
myself praying that the light of Christ that we celebrate at Easter
- light that is symbolized by this candle - might overcome the
darkness of the suffering people of Ukraine and suffering people
everywhere.
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. In my
reading the other day I came across this arresting thought: “Our
Scriptures do not give us words to explain away pain and death;
rather, they give us the Son of God who is willing to descend into
the trenches and suffer and die with us. Rather than encouraging us
from the sidelines, he gets in the game and takes punches along with
us.”
My friends, this is
the Christ we celebrate at Easter, the Christ who, thanks to his
victory over death brings us life in abundance, overflowing life,
life that is ours for the taking in the sacramental life of the
Church, life 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 came here this morning to celebrate more than a
metaphor. We came here because we believe - or are doing our best to
believe - the astonishingly good news proclaimed to those three
brave women at the empty tomb early on that first day of the week:
“Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here. He
has been raised!”
We need, my friends,
on this Easter day of 2022, 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, 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 even now, thanks to the grace of God,
is ours!
My friends, the
Resurrection is mystery and miracle, but it is not metaphor. And it
is also Mission. That is why, like those three women at the tomb, we
need to carry from this place the good news that is our belief in
the Risen Christ. We need to proclaim that faith. And how do we do
that? Probably not by standing on the street corner or by Facebook
or Instagram posts. That’s not our way. I like the way Carlo
Carretto, a favorite spiritual writer of mine, puts it: “Every time
we forgive an 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 the Resurrection.”
My friends in
Christ, we are Resurrection people. We must keep the flame of faith
alive in the face of some pretty bruising odds - including the war
in Ukraine, the ongoing passion of Christ. But Christ’s passion was
not the final word. His resurrection was. And is. And will be. Happy
Easter!
Father Michael G. Ryan
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