Easter Sunday

The candle is lit on the mantle, a reminder of who is missing ...as if any of us in this house need one.
A physical sign of her presence among us in a totally new way ...for God makes all things new ...even good in His extraordinary way.  I long to touch her, long to have her help me with Easter dinner, find her in my bed as she steals away for a nap, snuggled in my blankets mid morning ...how much I wish for that.  That was her way on Christmas and Easter, after the early morning rousing by the littles, she would steal away, not to her bed, but to mine ...staying close by.  She knew I would find her there, sit next to her, tuck blankets tightly around her, under her chin.  I have to find her in other places now.  Easter Sunday, the promise of the Resurrection, the promise of redemption ...Phoebe lives that now.

The Vigil of Easter restores me.  The darkness gives way to the light of Christ's defeat over death.  I listen to the words, the promise, the happening.  I listen to the ancient words, responses ...songs.  The music swirls in this Church, one hundred years old, the incense burns and I think I hear her voice, singing with the choir, giving praise and thanks ....and in my mind I can see her ....and she is smiling.  "The blink of an eye Mom ....the blink of an eye."  Yes, Phoebe, I believe that, but it feels so different here.
I've struggled to make sense of how His birth is connected to His death.  My walk at Christmas, less painful than this time ...these holiest of days.  I can't grab hold of anything that calms me ....until I am in a darkened Church ...and the fire is lit, the candles illuminate and Christ is proclaimed risen.  I need to believe and I do, with all my soul I know this to be true.  But still, how does Calvary relate to Bethlehem?  My thoughts are garbled.  A friend prods me on, her gentle way again, never demanding, insisting ...and I pick up the author she points me to, Abbot Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, volume 7, Pascal Time, Book 1, ...from long ago.  And I read ...

"No man taketh away my life from me:  I lay it down of myself:  I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again" (John, 18)  Thus spoke our Redeemer to the Jews before his Passion; now is the hour for the fulfilment of his words, and death shall feel their whole force.  The day of light, Sunday, has begun, and its early dawn is struggling with the gloom.  The Soul of Jesus immediately darts from the prison of limbo, followed by the whole multitude of the holy souls that are around him.  In the twinkling of an eye, it reaches and enters the sepulcher, and reunites itself with that Body which, three days before, it had quitted amidst an agony of suffering.  The sacred Body returns to life, raises itself up, and throws aside the winding-sheet, the spices, and the bands.  The bruises have disappeared, the Blood has been brought back to the veins; and from these limbs that had been torn by the scouring, from this head that had been mangled by the thorns, from these hands and feet that had been pierced with nails,  there darts forth a dazzling light that fills the cave.  The holy angles had clustered round the stable and adored the Babe of Bethlehem; they are now around the sepulchre, adoring the conqueror of death.  They take the shrouds, and reverently folding them up, place them on the slab whereon the Body had been laid by Joseph and Nicodemus.  
But Jesus is not to tarry in the gloomy sepulchre. Quicker than a ray of light through a crystal, he passes through the stone that closes the entrance of the cave and a guard of soldiers is there to see that no one touches it.  Untouched it is and unmoved; and yet Jesus is free!  Thus, as the holy Fathers unanimously teach us, was it as his birth:  he appeared to the gaze of Mary, maternal womb.  The birth and the Resurrection, the commencement and the end of Jesus' mission, these two mysteries bear on them the seal of resemblance: in the first, it is the Virgin Mother; in the last, it is a sealed tomb giving forth its captive God.

And so I see the story unfold, I see the beginning of His life in Bethlehem, and the beginning of new life on Easter Sunday.  Christ passes through ...disturbing no one, no thing ...only bringing goodness and light, using the simplest of people, the most humble ...the shepherds.  "When born in Bethlehem he would have for his first worshippers a few simple-minded shepherds, whose power to herald the great event was confined to their own village: and yet the birthday of this little Child is now the era of every civilized nation.  For the first witnesses of  his Resurrection he chose three weak women; and yet the whole earth is now, at this very moment celebrating the anniversary of this Resurrection.  There is in it a mysterious feeling of joy unlike that of any other day throughout the year: no one can resist it, not even the coldest heart.  The infidel who scoffs at the believer knows at least that this is Easter Sunday." (p. 111)

The story, the truth lives on, bringing promise and hope to hearts that have been wounded, to lives that have been ravaged by sin, pain, suffering ...loss.  What can this world offer my wounded heart, my brokenness, our brokenness?  Temporary distraction ...at best.  Christ can offer wholeness ...new life ....joy ...even in the suffering, the pain, the loss.  It costs us to follow Him, sometimes we lose in a very worldly way, and that can be extraordinarily hard ...and lonely.  But the gain, the promise, the fulfillment of following Him ...and His ways, the promise of shedding our old selves, our temporal selves ...is pure glory, for all eternity.  Imagine. 
Happy Easter!

Eternal rest grant unto Phoebe and may perpetual light shine upon her.  May she rest in peace. Amen.