Red Eggs and Resurrection

The sacred story varies, but I have grown to love it and so I share it with you:

It is said that some years after the Resurrection, Mary Magdalene was carrying a basketful of eggs into Jerusalem. She met up with Governor Tiberius, who followed Pontius Pilate. She proclaimed the good news of Christ's resurrection to Tiberius, who rejected it saying, "Christ has no more risen than those eggs are red." Immediately the eggs turned red. "Christ is risen (Christos Anesti)," she said, holding out a red egg. Tiberius said, "Truly he is risen (Alithos Anesti)."

And such is the greeting of the Eastern Church throughout the 40 days of Easter: Christos Anesti!

Make some red eggs today and remember.

Holy Triduum

Holy week is upon us. It's the rush of life. It is holy activity. Tonight begins Holy Triduum - Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday. I am reading the OT reading tonight (Ex 12.1-8, 11-14), Sophie is having her feet washed (token feet), and Avery is participating in the offertory procession. Tomorrow at 3:00 is the Good Friday liturgy - where we venerate the Cross (for Evangelicals, think Chris Tomlin's "Mighty Is the Power of the Cross"). Then Saturday night is Easter vigil, which begins at dusk. And, of course, Sunday is Easter - the Eighth Day of Creation, New Creation, Resurrection. (Here's a good article describing the Three Days (triduum) if you need a primer or refresher.) We may not all make it to Holy Saturday's Easter Vigil Mass, but I would like to get there if possible. It's a standing-room-only kind of Mass and can take two or three hours. Powerful hard with babies.

And while every Sunday is a little Easter where we celebrate the Paschal Mystery, this is a sanctified time where we are re-presented the joy and love and hope and life given us - shown again what is always ours. Night has passed, behold the dawn! Blessed be God forever!

Spring

It's spring here in North Carolina: My oldest daughter went to her first Reconciliation, receiving forgiveness for her dark and sordid eight years. My wife went to hers the same day.

Then, on Easter Vigil, Laura was received into full communion with the Catholic Church. I was confirmed. Our parish was crowded, the liturgy bi-lingual. It was noisy. And the Easter Vigil liturgy is not a short one, with reading after reading. But the children survived and now, thanks be to God, my wife also smells of balsam. She smells like the Holy Spirit.

The change in her is interesting to me - and it makes me happier than you can know. It surprised me. But the grace given to us through the sacraments shouted to her, I suspect. It moved her profoundly. She felt as if she were being married. As if she were being born again, again.

And I understand the feeling, the beauty and joy of it: The strangeness; being staggered into newness so unexpectedly; being elementally embraced by water and Spirit, and with oil and candlelight. And how, so immediately, your mind and heart turns toward family and friends, wishing they could, at the very least, participate in your reception. (In deep sadness, knowing that some would not.) Fervidly hoping that they might participate in their own - not because they are without Christ or anything necessary to their joy or salvation, because that is nonsense. But because they are not in full communion with the Church and miss the grace (the life, the nearness of God) that God gives so gratuitously within her sacramental life.

But it is difficult to describe, perhaps impossible, without offending those who are still where you were. And I will stop so that I am not guilty again of being overzealous. Perhaps I am already too late. (I do such a poor job - wanting to share my joy, but in the end only injuring those dear to me.) My heart is full. My wife's heart is full. And we are happy. Indeed.

May the Lord bless each of you. May his grace (his life, his nearness) pour out upon you. May you ever be more united to his love, which never fails, which has never been dependent upon you - that rushes forward without interruption, a mighty river from the side of Christ.

Christ is risen! He is truly risen!

Do Not Be Afraid

"Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people, and hallelujah is our song."

My meditation this week is from Pope John Paul II. And I will not be changing it for a few days. My reasons are (1) the season we find ourselves in, and (2) the poetry of the meditation has gotten into my very soul. And I want to keep it there.

But I would like to begin to explore it.

Today is Palm/Passion Sunday. It begins Holy Week. And this week is the apex of the Church calendar, within it is the totality of our being. As Fr Stephen Freeman says: All is Pascha.

John Paul the Great often said, "Do not be afraid." And these words are the exposition and rising action of our lives, our two-act plays. O! The comfort these words bring. And they lead to the blessed climax and denouement: We are the Easter people. All is Pascha.

Our lives turn upon this week. They climax in the Triduum and resolve with a shout. And after, we live in the New Day, the day without an end - we live in Pascha.

So there is nothing to fear.

But, even still, I do.

I fear failure. I fear being dismissed and rejected. I fear the darkness within and without. I fear having to die that Christ might live in me. I fear that others will discover that I am a fraud. A hack. A poser. A sinner.

What is it you fear?

Do not be afraid. Do not abandon yourselves to despair.

We are the Community of Pardon. Our gospel is reconciliation. It is peace. We, each one of us, entered the kingdom through pardon. And each one of us remains in it by that same mercy so freely given.

We are loved. Therefore, brothers and sisters, do not abandon yourselves to despair.