We all have been brought together by the power of God's
spirit to be again "dipped and dyed," in the Paschal Mystery. Each year, we come to an ever deeper
understanding of our daily participation in the Paschal Mystery. It is so essential for us to remember, it is
a daily participation in the suffering, death and burial, resurrection and
ascension of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Our daily journey is our Paschal Journey. Our daily experience of what is means to be
human is our encounter with the cross.
It is in and through the events of our daily journey, our God uses to
bring about the transformation and transfiguration necessary for us to become
more and more the contemporary presence of His Son, Jesus Christ. He is the potter, we are the clay, and the
daily events are the tools in the hand of The Master. You will now notice, where before there was
garbage, walls, and dullness, now we see wonderful gifts that have come to
us. These gifts are spread out among the
community. The emphasis is on the living
water, the fountain of water, that is flowing so very freely from a place of
mystery.
The place of Mystery is within us. It is out of the midst of our uncertainty,
fears, and disillusionment, that somehow the living waters of life, of Christ,
come flowing into our deepest consciousness and our daily living. That is why we have to be constantly
"dipped and dyed," so we can be exposed in each liturgy to the life
of Christ, the light of Christ and the love of Christ.
Easter transforms and transfigures. It allows us to have the hope at this time,
and at this stage of our journey, that death is not "the final word on
life or despair the final state of human beings." (Boff)
as we make our journey in the light of the resurrection, we know that out
of all pain, sorrow, and the brokenness comes new life and wonderful
gifts. The greater the wound, the great
the pain...the greater the gift. Because
of the Resurrection, we experience in our lives the following:
Where before there was
Guilt, now there is Forgiveness, Where there was Anger, now there is
Compassion. Where there was Resentment,
now there is Understanding and Gratitude.
Where there was Boredom, now there is Wonder. Where there was Anxiety, now there is
Excitement. Where there was Greed and
Envy, now there is Sharing and Generosity.
So, we see then our
Garbage is turned into treasure, and gifts, to be shared. It is by the power of God, not and never by
our power, this is accomplished. Like
the Risen Christ, we carry, and will carry, our wounds with us. We will learn over and over again wounds
brought to prayer, brought to reconciliation, brought to Eucharist, become
sacred wounds. These wounds become the
place of encounter with faith for those who share a common experience. As a result of this encounter, courage and
faith is shared, leading to a greater belief and trust in the transforming love
of our Heavenly Father.
We, also need to remember it is when the disciples are most
aware of their failures and shortcomings, they are given the power to forgive
sins. I have always said, I would like
to go to reconciliation with St. Peter, because he would be the one most aware
of his humanity and his vulnerability.
From his experience, he would have been given the gifts of compassion,
understanding, and empathy. We need to
be showered with these gifts. These are
the gifts we need to shower on ourselves so, we can enjoy these self same gifts
when they are offered to us by our Heavenly Father. "Grace perfects human nature." (St.
Thomas Aquinas) It is in and through
this experience, we come to believe and know the Risen Christ. It is in the awareness and celebration of
these gifts, we come to know the joy of the Risen Christ. We, too can testify, "The Lord is
Risen," and His risen life is a life we now share and experience. We will come to believe in the Risen Christ
not because we have seen Him, rather, we have experienced His risen presence in
our lives. I like what Thomas Keating
says, "This, of course, is an important message for
us. It tells us that it is far better to
relate to the Risen Christ on the basis of pure faith that rests not on appearances,
feelings, external evidence or what other people say, but on our personal
experience of the Christ-life rising up and manifesting its fruits within
us. This is the living faith that
empowers us to act under the influence of the Spirit - the same Spirit that
Jesus breathed upon the apostles on the evening of His resurrection."
Here are some further thoughts from Fr. Ronald Rolhheiser's
book, "Holy Longing." "The Paschal Mystery is a process of
transformation within which we are given both new life and new spirit. It begins with suffering, and death, moves
onto the reception of new life, spends some time grieving the old and adjusting
to the new, and finally, only after the old life has been truly let go of, is
new spirit given for the life we are already living."
Theologically, looking at Jesus' teachings and especially at
his death and resurrection and what follows from them, we can see that there
are five clear, distinct moments within the paschal cycle: Good Friday, Easter
Sunday, the forty days leading up to the Ascension, the Ascension, and
Pentecost. Each of these is part of a single
process, an organic one, and each needs to be understood in relation to the
others to make sense of the paschal mystery.
Each is part of one process of transformation, of dying and letting go
so, as to receive new life and new spirit.
In caption, the paschal cycle might be diagrammed as follows:
1.Good Friday..."the loss of the life-real death"
2.Easter Sunday..."the reception of new life"
3.The Forty Days..."a time for readjustment to the new
and for grieving the old"
4. Ascension..."letting go of the old and letting it
bless you, the refusal to cling"
5.Pentecost..."the reception of new spirit for the new
life that one is already living"
Put into a more colloquial language and stated as a
personal, paschal challenge for each of us, one might recast the diagram this
way:
1."Name your death"
2."Claim your births"
3."Grieve what you have lost and adjust to the new
reality"
4."Do not cling to the old, let it ascend and give you
its blessing"
5."Accept the spirit of the life that you are in fact
living"
This cycle is not something that we must undergo just once,
at the moment of our deaths, when we lose our earthly lives as we know
them. It is rather something we must
undergo daily, in every aspect of our lives.
Christ spoke of many deaths, of daily deaths, and of many rising and
various pentecosts. The Paschal Mystery
is the secret to life. Ultimately our
happiness depends upon properly undergoing it.
May the peace and joy of the Easter Season be yours, today
and all the days of your life as you make your journey through life.
No comments:
Post a Comment