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A Magnificat for our Time  (Adapted by Tom Mahon from the Gospel of Luke (1:46-55); the original text follows below)

And it came to pass the angel Gabriel announced to the virgin Mary that she would conceive by the Spirit, and bear the Anointed One. Then, knowing how violent the “Holy Land” can be at times, Gabriel quickly returned to Heaven without telling the local gossips the back-story of Mary’s new condition.  Forced by convention to leave town during her scandalous confinement, Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth who, though advanced in years, was also with child.  Elizabeth greeted Mary asking, Who am I that the mother of the Awaited One should visit me?  And Mary replied:

 

 

My condition manifests how incomprehensible is God;

How do we fathom His magnitude?

 

He has looked with favor upon an illiterate peasant in an occupied territory,

And destined her to accomplish a great thing.

 

All generations to come will call me Blessed.

Poets and composers will proclaim Ave Maria!

 

But in my time and town, I am an outcast; an immigrant in my home.

In the room the yentas come and go, spurning Mary and her ‘husband’ Joe.

 

Already, gossips talk amongst themselves about my bastard boy.

Their children will shun him, and bar his entry to the House of the Lord.

 

But the family which the community rejected

Will embrace the community without exception.

 

I will bear the boy and his name will be Word,

And Word will sound across the land, sea and sky.

 

Say the Word I’m thinking of,

For you know the Word is Love.

 

 



And this will be a sign: a rough Beast will slouch toward Babylon,

Devouring all within his maw: flower and brush; turtle and fawn.

 

He will claim to act for Word,

But his every word is Lie and Calumny.

 

He will poison land, sea and sky,

And choke Justice with the shroud of hypocrisy.

 

Where there is compassion, he will enshrine greed.

He will ridicule mercy, as brigands make merrie when dividing their spoils.

 

But of his kingdom there will be an untimely end,

And of his towers and cities, not one stone will remain upon another.

 

 



Word sounds in wasteland; makes song of bogs and fens.

Known to the immigrant and homeless, Word is hearth fire.

 

Merciful and patient, it lifts up those in despair

And magnifies the lowly, rebuking the have’s and the have-more’s.

The Deaf will hear; the Blind see; the Lame dance like fawns.

But the rich will be sent away barren; dust and ashes in their throats.

 

Word comes! Make straight the way:

Be straight in what you do and say.

 

This is written in the stars; is burned in the heart:

There is no Word but Love; the uni-verse is its utterance.

 



This promise was evident to our ancestors,

And will be to us and to our posterity, as well.

You are Word. Speak! Now!

So be it. Amen.

 

Tom Mahon, Christmas, 2007


c 2007, Tom Mahon

 

 

The Magnificat (Translated from Latin in the Douay Bible of 1582)

 

My soul doth magnify the Lord. And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

 

Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid; for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.

 

Because he that is mighty, hath done great things to me; and holy is his name.

 

And his mercy is from generation unto generations, to them that fear him.

 

He hath shewed might in his arm: he hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.

 

He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble.

  

He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.

  

He hath received Israel his servant, being mindful of his mercy:

  

As he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed for ever.

 

 Epiphany – the Journey Carries on

An old Russian legend tells how, one icy winter’s night, when the snow lay deep, and the wind howled around the wooden hut of an old woman, a Baboushka, or grandmother. As she huddled over the leaping flames of the blazing pine logs, she heard a faint noise of someone approaching, and then a knock on her door. [1]To her amazement, standing in the snow were Three Wise Men, dressed in splendid fashion and carrying precious caskets of gold, encrusted with jewels – and she smelled the fragrances of frankincense and myrrh. They told her that they were on their way to Bethlehem to seek the Prince of Peace and all three urged her to come with them and offer her gift too. But the night was too cold and the snow was too deep and poor Baboushka felt her age severely. Bethlehem was too far away, and, sadly, she bade them continue without her. But as the night took its course, her sadness gave way to joy, as she thought that there was indeed something she could do and give. Yes, the newborn child was a prince, but he was also a baby. She knew what babies liked and filled her basket with toys and balls and bright tinsel. But to her dismay the traces of the Wise Men were lost in the snow, and, though she wandered from village to village, Baboushka never found the Prince of Peace. But, every year at Christmas time, Baboushka goes from village to village when the evening lamps are lit, and brings her simple gifts to every house where there is a baby or a small child.  

A legend perhaps, but one that evokes the continuing meaning of the Epiphany story - its journey, its quest and its revelation - told to us only by Matthew’s Gospel (1.18-2.23). In this sense of continuing quest for peace and reconciliation Epiphany offers a fitting conclusion. First, we look at its traditional meaning for western and eastern Christians, and then at its potential for the wider journey explored here.

A cluster of meanings has evolved around the story of the three Wise Men/Magi/Kings, known traditionally – but not biblically - as Melchior, Caspar and Balthasar. They are supposed to have journeyed from Persia: the word µɑɣoɩ/ magoi  in this context means “wise men” from the east. The kernel of the story is that the coming of the Christ-Child is not only a gift for the House of Israel but also for the wider world, biblically speaking -  the Gentiles. This is Christmas day for the Gentiles, according to Western Christianity, and of special importance for eastern Christianity too. Yet again is the prophet Isaiah drawn upon liturgically as a biblical foretelling of this wider significance of Christmas:

         Arise, shine out, for your light has come,

The glory of the Lord is rising on you,

Though night still covers the earth

and darkness the peoples.....

Camels in throngs will cover you,

And dromedaries of Midian and Ephah;

Everyone in Sheba will come,

Bringing gold and incense

And singing the praise of the Lord.[2]

A major difference between East and West is precisely what this feast commemorates. For Western Christians, the feast primarily celebrates the coming of the Three Wise Men, while Eastern Churches celebrate the Baptism of Christ in the Jordan. But in both traditions, the essence of the feast is similar: the manifestation of Christ to the world (whether as an infant, or in the Jordan River in a Trinitarian context), together with the whole Mystery of the Incarnation: and therein lie disagreements and tensions vis-à-vis Judaism and Islam, who cannot accept the Christian claim that Jesus is the Son of God.

In the west, by the year 534 AD, the Church had separated the celebration of the Nativity of Christ as the feast of Christmas and set its date as December 25th[3]: so January 6th then became the Feast of the commemoration of the coming of the Magi. But the Eastern Church continued to celebrate January 6th as a composite feast of the Baptism of Jesus. Later it adopted December 25th to commemorate both Jesus' birth and the coming of the Magi, but kept January 6th as a commemoration of his Baptism. This meant the shining forth and revelation of Jesus Christ as the Messiah and Second Person of the Trinity at the time of his baptism.[4] It is also celebrated because, according to tradition, the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River by John marked one of only two occasions when all three Persons of the Trinity manifested themselves simultaneously to humanity: God as Father by speaking through the clouds, God as Son being baptized in the river, and God as Holy Spirit in the shape of a dove descending from heaven  - (the other occasion was the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor). Thus the Feast of Epiphany is considered by the Eastern Church to be a manifestation, a revelation of the Holy Trinity. [5]

Revelation and Epiphanies of Connection

Here I want to link with a more literary meaning of “epiphany” as moment of inspiration and revelation. This is in order to draw Epiphany into the journey to peace and reconciliation today. This idea of epiphany depends on the novelist James Joyce, who, in his novel  A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man[6]  referred to those times in his life when something became manifest as a deep realization:  he would then attempt to write this epiphanic realization in a fragment. Joyce also used epiphany as a literary device within each short story of his collection Dubliners (1914) as his protagonists came to sudden recognitions that changed their view of themselves or their social condition and often sparking a reversal or change of heart. More related to the meaning I am exploring, an epiphany of connection, (referred to in Chapter Two in relation to Annunciation in its aspect of mutuality), is the way the Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas understood epiphany, namely as a manifestation of the divine as seen in the face of the other. In the face of the other, the infinite is glimpsed. This has deep ethical implications:

The other becomes my neighbour precisely through the way the face summons me, calls for me, begs for me, and in so doing recalls my responsibility, and calls me into question. [7]

This draws us nearer to what I evoke: epiphanies of connection – similar to Taylors’s annunciations as I-Thou encounters - offer potential to break through barriers of hostility. Levinas introduces the notion of our responsibility to the other through the bare encounter with the other’s face. Especially where the other is encountered as a hostile other. Responding to the relational encounter can lead to mutual understanding and eventually to reconciliation. Epiphany can thus act as a beckoning star drawing us further towards making valuable connections for peace.

But how can this work practically, given the barriers that now prevent mutual understanding? Can celebrating Epiphany – Christmas offer this kind of possibility? I suggest that if celebrating Christmas asked us to focus on offering hospitality as a society, in changing attitudes to homelessness, refugees and asylum seekers, Epiphany, because of its wider outreach, offers the chance to overcome other barriers – such as between faiths, in our common search for peace.

Christmas/Epiphany- invitation for a Muslim- Jewish- Christian encounter?[8]

For Islam, celebrating Christmas does not offer much attraction. The two Islamic feasts are Eid and Ramadan. Although in western countries some Muslims may put up Christmas trees and see no harm in celebrating the Prophet Jesus’ birthday, this does not generally happen in predominantly Islamic lands. Christmas is seen as a feast of excess, an occasion for eating extravagantly and drinking to excess – rather like the pagan winter feast with which the origins of Christmas are linked.  Yet the Qu’ran actually relates the story of the birth of Christ, but the story is given a very different meaning. [9]The Virgin Mary is told by an angel that she will give birth to a “pure” son, “as a sign unto men and a mercy from Us”. She withdraws to a desert place, alone, and gives birth to the baby under a palm tree. When she returns with the baby to her people, they presume Mary has been unfaithful, but the infant Jesus speaks up from his cradle in her defence, telling them that he is a prophet. The passage concludes with a denunciation of the doctrine of the Incarnation – but it is interpreted in polytheistic terms, whereas Christians in reality do not believe in three gods.  Muslims cannot celebrate Christmas because of this misinterpretation of the Incarnation. Yet Palestinian educators see that building a common understanding between Muslims and Christians is important: in Bethlehem, for example,

The textbooks of the Palestinian authority pay attention to Jesus and Mary, Bethlehem and Christmas, and regularly school classes of Moslem students visit the Church of Nativity on a fieldtrip (which is not only a religious but also a national symbol for Palestinians). [10]

Similar difficulties haunt Jewish – Christian relations around Christmas. It is puzzling and problematic, says Rabbi Dan Cohn Sherbok:

As a little boy growing up in the leafy suburbs of Denver, I remember being an angel in a nativity play in my elementary school. A rather odd role for a Jewish six year old. But no one seemed to mind. At home we opened Christmas presents on Christmas day. But no tree was allowed. In pulpits rabbis fulminated against those congregants who had Christmas trees in their living rooms. Yet no mention was made about exchanging gifts. It was all most perplexing. The Rabbi’s ban on Christmas trees caused my mother frustration and a degree of distress. As an artist, she wanted to decorate a Christmas tree with home-made objects. But it was not to be. Instead we had a rather pathetic Hanukkah bush. I recall being taken in my parents' car to look at all the houses in Denver displaying Christmas lights outside. My mother sighed as we drove through the streets of Denver. She would have liked to decorate our house, too. But this was a major taboo.

Not only the trappings of Christmas but its message were off-limits - it seemed rather fanciful – like the Wizard of Oz!

But there are important reasons for attempting a closer understanding at this moment. The first is, that Christmas, as we have been noting, whatever its religious origins and aspirations, is now celebrated with commercialist excess with presents, food and drink –even decadence: there are issues here of lost values and of environmental damage that concern all faiths – and I have already cited that this “decadence” is deeply offensive to Muslims.

The second issue is more crucial: Christmas - beneath –the – tinsel is actually about peace. Yet the lack of peace is what haunts our world, and the crucible of sorrow is in the Middle East and the still-festering wounds of Iraq, as well as complex unfolding tragedies in Afghanistan. Christianity and Judaism both play roles in the Middle East. Could closer understandings of the Christmas and Epiphany message offer inspiration at this juncture?

Following Levinas’s injunction to take responsibility for the face of the other  means taking seriously what Jews bring to Christmas, namely,

a fearful legacy of 20 centuries of suffering and murder. Easter, of course, is worse... through the history of Jewish-Christian encounter Jews have been vilified for Jesus’ death.
... it is not easy for Jews to set aside this terrible history of persecution in the quest to find spiritual meaning in the celebration of Jesus' birth. [11]

No one underestimates the difficulty: the challenge is to begin a mutual journey to find meaning in the Christmas story. Beyond the  extravagance of a commercialised Christmas season there is, as this book has explored, the promise of peace in our troubled and troubling world.
Dan Cohn-Sherbok in his turn highlights the Middle East as a focus for concern:

At the end of the 19th century Zionists argued that the only solution to the problem of Jew-hatred would be for Jews to have a state of their own in their native homeland. But this was not to be. Today Jews everywhere are despised by the Arab world. Can the nativity scene somehow serve as a bridge between Jews and Arabs in the Holy Land?

The legacy of persecution of Jews, especially by Christians, and especially at Easter, is part of taking responsibility for the other, referred to by Levinas. And especially at a time when neo-Nazism is rearing its ugly head, and Holocaust denial has become popular, albeit only with a small minority. Yet there is still hope that we are in a new phase, and that Christmas offers a chance to move forward to some shared future, the hope that wrongs of the past need not be repeated. The words of Maya Angelou, at the inauguration of President Clinton, express this well:

           History, despite its wrenching pain,

         Cannot be unlived, but if faced

         With courage, need not be lived again.[12]

Yet this cannot happen without true conversion of heart on the part of Christians and some sharing of the vision of the Biblical peaceable kingdom. This sharing can unite both faiths through the inspiration of tikkun olam, the healing of the world, a vision that stretches beyond sectarian divides. And although the birth of Jesus at Christmas is not mentioned by the earliest Gospel writer, Mark, he begins his writing precisely by a call to proclaim the Good News! “The kingdom is at hand!”(Mark 1.14). Matthew and Luke project back into seeing this vision of a peaceful and just Kingdom prophetically glimpsed in the child’s wonder-birth. Centuries of prophetic tradition pick up on this strand of Christmas that transcends denominational barriers: it is a time for generosity for all, for true giving - to the homeless, refugees, to victims of environmental disaster.

In this way Jews and Christians can move beyond the tragedy of past Jewish-Christian relations. Over the last hundred years a range of Jewish thinkers have encouraged their fellow Jews to look at Jesus in a new way. Even if Jews  cannot accept the doctrine of Jesus' Messiahship, nor the doctrine of the Incarnation, it is still possible, as Dan Cohn Sherbok suggests, that Jews can stand before the crib alongside their Christian brothers and sisters and wonder at Jesus' prophetic ministry. This witnesses to the strong Jewish belief that Jesus was firmly in the line of the prophets of ancient Israel. Christians, of course, need to keep in mind that Jesus was a Jew, albeit a reforming one, and remained a faithful Jew until his death. Secondly, as we have been constantly appreciating, the whole of the Christmas story and events that led up to it, especially the foretelling, birth and mission of John the Baptist, are permeated with the inspiration of Isaiah, a Jewish prophet. The Midnight Mass of Christmas is redolent with the imagery of darkness to light, “the people who walk in darkness will see a great light” at the birth of this Prince of Peace, the wonder counsellor. (Is 9. 2,6). In the liturgical Christian season, the Advent journey looks forward to a vision of redeemed creation, creation reconciled and made whole, and this is the shared hope of Jews and Christians, namely, the peaceable Kingdom.

Within this stance, Jesus' attack on the scribes and Pharisees can be seen, not as a rejection of Torah, but as a prophetic renunciation of corruption. But there is more: placing himself in the line of the prophets, Jesus called the people back to the true worship of God. His words and actions testify to his dedication to compassion and loving kindness. In the case of those who were most sorely in need – within the theme of this book, the victims of conflict - he was able to reach out in love and compassion. Is this is the Christmas message that can bind us together to create a better world despite the differences that divide us?         But there is a danger that this sentiment remains at the level of generalities. How can it offer any concrete hope for, especially, a way out of deadlocked conflict in the Middle East, with the realities of the “little town of Bethlehem” today, with which Chapter Three began? Dan Cohn Sherbok feels strongly that compassion for the Palestinians should not blind to the fact that

For nearly four thousand years the Jewish people have been subject to persecution and murder. Your experiences in Bethlehem should not blind you to this fact. We, too, have been victims. We are separated from the Palestinian people by our aims. But we are united with them in suffering. In different ways our two peoples have been wounded, and we have wounded one another. The question is whether there can be healing in the Christian message. Can Jesus' call for a peaceable kingdom speak to Jews and Arabs in the Holy Land?[13]

Certainly, nothing is gained by refusing to see the total picture. Opposing the policies of the Zionist government is not falling back into the old anti-semitism. As one Jewish writer, whose consciousness has changed with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict put it:

The Rabbis who will not engage ..in an honest discussion about Israel and Palestine are not friends of Israel. We Jews are in spiritual peril and Israel itself is in great danger.[14]

Nor should Christian shared responsibility for the choice of Palestine as the Jewish homeland be ignored. It was Lord Shaftesbury, after all, who first pronounced the influential sentence, "A land without a people, for a people without a land". The struggle for peace in the Middle East is multi-facetted and religion will only be able to play a limited part. Our question here remains: what role can celebrating the Christmas feast play in this struggle?

The first point about this is to recall that, yes, this is a Christian feast and that Christians in Israel and Palestine now feel themselves a beleaguered group, “the Forgotten Faithful” in fact.[15] Every day their numbers are dropping as huge numbers go into exile because of present conditions. They suffer too because the world does not recognise that they have kept the faith since the earliest days of the founding of Christianity and sees the Middle-Eastern conflict as solely between Jew and Muslim. Celebrating Christians is about affirming their identity and showing solidarity.

But, secondly, what it can offer to our shared faith communities is, its focus on a vulnerable child, threatened with murder and then becoming a refugee – a strong motif of Matthew’s narrative. There are now hundreds of vulnerable children across our faith divides and insufficient focus on what the conflict does to them. A Recent report from Save The Children points out that

the link between climate change and child survival struggles

          to command public and political attention. It is vital that governments

          and the public understand what is at stake. Tackling the issues young    

           children face as a result of climate change must be made a priority.

   Today, most child deaths occur in the world’s poorest countries and communities. Children are dying from a small number of preventable

 and treatable diseases and conditions, including diarrhoea, malaria and  malnutrition. An estimated third of the entire global childhood disease  burden is attributable to changeable factors in food, soil, water and air.[16]

Thirdly, Christmas is a time of hospitality and giving: our faiths offer resources to avoid excessive extravagance. “Offer your heart to the infant

king” says one loved carol.[17] Could this become a time of offering, of giving, of for-giveness across our faith communities? This child will grow up, offer a message of peace and non-violence that rings through the centuries. This is truly something to be shared at Christmas. The Christmas message recalls Jews as well as Muslims and Christians in the Holy Land to a vision that all can share. In different ways and at various times in their history, all three faith groups have felt victimised. The child Jesus who is adored at birth became as an adult a first century prophet calling his followers to a vision of the Messianic Kingdom as depicted by Isaiah:

It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be    raised above the hills, and all nations shall flow into it...He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plough shares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.' (Isaiah 2:2-4)

Of course Jews cannot view Jesus as the long awaited Redeemer. But his inspirational vision of peace is a central feature of the Jewish as well as Christian  heritage. And it is this picture of peace that can inspire us, Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, requiring a change of heart and the willingness for all of us to forgive our enemies. Such unconditional forgiveness is not solely a Christian ideal - repeatedly rabbinic sages stressed the importance of forgiving one' enemies. As the Talmud states:

     Whoever takes vengeance or bears a grudge acts like one who, having cut

one hand while handling a knife, avenges himself by stabbing the other  hand.[18]

So, even if Jews cannot accept the Christology of the Christmas story, none the less, Christmas can inspire us all to seek God's peace on earth - on earth as it is in heaven.  Even though Jews cannot accept Jesus as Messiah, perhaps Christmas encourages the possibility of a shared hope and belief in a messianic consciousness that is the willingness to work for transformation. What is more, the symbolism of the birth of this child is that the initiative of generosity and love is Divine, and on this initiative rests the possibility of mutual forgiveness.

If God’s economy is a gift economy, is the invitation of this feast for Jews, Christians, Muslims, to transcend the realities of hate and revenge, to embrace the true gift of Christmas as forgiving love, and so bring us to the threshold of the dawning of the Peaceable Kingdom of reconciliation?

And thus, at the end of the feast, when the tree returns to the garden to grow quietly until the following year, [19]the true work of Christmas can begin:

As Howard Thurman wrote:

                  When the song of the angels is stilled

                  When the star in the sky is gone

When the kings and the princes are home

When the shepherds are back with their flocks

 The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost

To heal the broken

To feed the hungry

To release the prisoner

To rebuild the nations

To bring peace among the people

To make music in the heart. [20]

And, as Auden’s shepherds put it, when transformed by their visit to the newborn Child of Peace, in words that call out to us through the ages,

O here and now the endless journey starts.[21]

Christmas Guide-Document contains both of the articles listed below:

• Advent 2009: The End of the World As We Know It by JONATHAN WILSON-HARTGROVE
• Twelve Gifts in Hard Times by AL FRITSCH
• EASTER Articles:    
  ^Reclaiming Lent for Justice  ^Holy Thursday
    ^Walter Wink: What Happened to Jesus   ^Joseph McCloskey SJ: Teh Spriitual Meaning of the Resurrection  ^Preparing for Easter  ^Alana Price: A Humanist Celebration of Easter

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Lent

Reclaiming Lent for justice

Lent is viewed by many Christians as a time to regain a sense of personal piety. We “give up” small pleasures as a form of spiritual cleansing and repentance. Unfortunately, this can turn into a somewhat self-serving exercize, something Martin Luther warned against.

“In Luther's perspective, we shouldn't be spending time and energy doing ‘false spiritual work’,” says Dr. Gordon Jensen, Assistant Professor of Reformation History and Theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon. “Since it is God who justifies us, we should celebrate God’s work by being a neighbour to our neighbours.”

Lent is a time to slow down, to step back, says Jensen, to reflect and call things what they are. That includes examining broken relationships—both personal and corporate—and endeavouring to restore them.

Following here are a number of suggested Lenten activities to help us focus on injustices that have been perpetrated to ensure our way of life:

1.      Investigate the human cost of putting coffee into your cup. As an alternative to giving up drinking coffee for Lent, purchase fair-trade coffee for yourself and for coffee-drinking friends. Encourage a discussion about fair and just trade. A visit to www.transfair.ca might help.

2.      During the 40 days of Lent, post a photo or a quote on your refrigerator to remind you to pray for the needs of people in bondage to hunger. Visit the Lutheran World Federation website www.lutheranworld.org to learn how to assist those working to relieve world hunger.

3.      Go through your closet and give away at least five pieces of unused clothing before Easter. Learn to live with less. Reflect on what guides your purchasing habits. Visit www.adbusters.org

4.      Attend to relationships that matter. Decide to do something as a family or friends other than watch television. Take a walk together, talk with each other or play a game. Visit http://adbusters.org/campaigns/tvturnoff/

5.      Eat your evening meals by candlelight, and discuss other ways to conserve energy. Visit the Inter-Church committee on Ecology at www.web.net

6.      Much healing is still needed in the relationship between aboriginal and non-aboriginal Canadians.  Examine your prejudices.  Attend a public cross-cultural activity such as a Pow-Wow. Visit www.turning-point.ca

7.      Make a pledge as a family to integrate the awareness brought about during Lent.  Resolve to continue to practice good habits discovered during Lent. Check out suggestions at www.simpleliving.org

"As Lutherans we know we can't bring about justice by ourselves,” says Pastor Jensen. “When it happens, justice is always God's action—a sign of God breaking into our world, bringing life where the only reality seems to be death.  But we want to be a part of that life, and we will pray for it."

And that, after all, is what Lent is all about: a time to prepare ourselves for a celebration of the Easter resurrection.

Holy Thursday 

A talk given at Ecce Homo convent in Jerusalem's Old City.
 
Donald Moore, sj
 
Holy Thursday 2010
 
Jean Vanier, founder of L’Arche and whom many of you know, reminds us that our Christian life is not a flight from the world of pain and matter, but a mission into that world to love people as Jesus loves them. These words capture so much of what we celebrate this evening as we enter into the solemn liturgical commemoration of the Paschal Mystery of Jesus. It is a mystery that begins with the immersion of Jesus into the world of pain and matter, of suffering and sorrow. Having loved his own in the world, he would now show them the extent of his love. His is a love unto death. And our participation in this Paschal Triduum is also our affirmation that our Christian life is in no way a flight from that world which surrounds us with all of its demands and disappointments, its joy and beauty. We immerse ourselves into this world because as followers of Jesus Christ, we have no other option.
 
In a similar vein, we turn to the renowned theologian, Edward Schillebeekx. In one of the last conferences to his Dominican family before his death six months ago, he reminded them that extra mundum nulla salus: outside the world there is no salvation. We are accustomed to hear that outside the Church there is no salvation. Father Schillebeekx, like Jean Vanier, would have us center our lives on this bruised and battered world for which Jesus suffered and died. Jesus has come not to condemn the world, but to save the world. He too was (and is) deeply concerned with our world.
 
In our gospel this evening Jesus gathers with his disciples for one final meal, a Passover meal so sacred to his Jewish faith. There he manifests to his disciples and to us how we are to save this broken world which is yours and mine. Remember, these are the words and actions of one who knows he is about to die, who is “aware that he had come from God and was returning to God,” So what does Jesus do? He lays aside his outer garments (as he would soon lay aside his life), pours water into a basin, girds himself with a towel, and washes the feet of his disciples. A strange way to save the world! Jesus here embodies the truth of what he had tried to convey to them earlier in his ministry: Whoever would be great among you, must serve the others, and whoever would be first among you, must be the slave of all. The Son of man has come not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. In this act of humble service Jesus is also expressing the truth of our human condition: our humanity is intimately bound up with service. (What that service might be is for each of us to discern.) You shall know the truth, he had told them, and the truth will set you free. Jesus has come to liberate us from all that ties us down to self, to help us achieve the freedom to let go of everything in order to make of ourselves a gift to others, a gift to our world. This is precisely what Jesus is about to do as he freely accepts suffering and death. He maintains his fidelity not to his own will, “but to the will of the one who sent me.” In his washing of the feet Jesus is not only making one last gift of himself to his disciples, but he is also saying in effect: If this chalice can not pass me by, then not my will but yours be done. Gethsemene is not present in John’s gospel, but the whole spirit of Gethsemene is embodied in the washing of the feet. Jesus is letting go of everything for the world, for his sisters and brothers, and above all for his Abba-God.
 
Then Jesus turns to his disciples and reminds them: "If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet.  I have given you a model to follow..."   There is so much to learn from this scene. I would suggest that we immerse ourselves in it. Let us follow with our heart these words and actions of Jesus. What a strange way to begin a Passover meal --  to wash the feet of the guests! We note the loving gaze of Jesus on these chosen disciples, the gentle touch as he pours the water and dries each foot, the eagerness and love with which he performs this duty of a slave. And let us remember: “This man is going to die for me.”  Perhaps Jesus is reminding us that when all else has passed away, the only things remaining will be the marks ands signs of my service and love, reminding us that we must become gift as he has become gift, as this Eucharist becomes gift: “My flesh for the life of the world.”
With our Lord and Master we commit ourselves to the life of the world, to the world entrusted to us here and now in the Holy Land, with its tensions and violence, its joys and beauty, its oppression and injustice. Along with the Christian leaders who authored the recent Kairos Document, A Moment of Truth, we cry out from within the sufferings of this land, sufferings rooted in occupation, in checkpoints, in daily humiliations, in the random firing of rockets, in the Wall, in demolitions. As followers of Christ we bring to this world a message of faith and hope and love. We cry out with faith in a loving and compassionate God who hears our plea in the midst of our distress. We cry out with hope and conviction that this present situation cannot endure and that God will support our steadfast efforts to change the reality in which we find ourselves. We cry out with love, a love and respect for the dignity of all our sisters and brothers. Jesus, emptying himself for us in his passion and death has revealed the depth of God’s love. It is in the spirit of this love that we are called to resist the evil in our world, to oppose all that smacks of injustice, oppression, racism. If we accept violence and injustice and simply stand by and do nothing, professing powerlessness, then we have abandoned our Christian faith. Our faith calls on us to resist evil, yet never to lose sight of the dignity of the one who commits evil. This is a difficult task that Jesus confers on us, especially here in this Land – a struggle rooted in love and with the consciousness of our own fallibility. In the washing of the feet in tonight’s gospel, we recall again that Jesus takes on the form of a slave: there is no arrogance, no finger-pointing, no pride here, only a loving service that pleads for understanding and imitation. When Peter exclaims: You will NEVER wash my feet, Jesus replies: Then you can have no part in me. In other words:  Peter, unless you can empty yourself of all your pride and self-righteousness, then forget about being my disciple. Lord, cries Peter, not only my feet, but wash all of me! Such total devotion and love was Peter’s, yet his was a love that would still know failure.

The question of Jesus to his disciples at the end of the gospel is also a question addressed to us: Do you realize what I have done for you? If so, then go and do likewise. Wash one another’s feet. Make of your lives a total emptying of self and a gift to one another, a gift to your world, a gift above all to your loving and compassionate God. Our Christian lives, as Jean Vanier pointed out, are not a flight from the world of pain and doubt and misunderstanding, but a mission into that world to serve and heal it, to proclaim to it the Good News of salvation, and to bring to it that same love with which Jesus has loved us.

**************************************************************************************

Miranda (& Erich) Weingartner

EASTER

Russian Easter


"Is it permitted?" inquire our two Moscow guests
on a Long Beach bench
as sacred emblems pass our way
"We are not members
of your church."

"Yes," I whisper,
"all are Christians
and believers here."

Then we three as one
with tear-stained smiles
and Slavic souls communing
thus took the broken loaf
and through the Ancient date
the Mystery rose to fuse
the Awful Fission.

Eugene Kovalenko
Long Beach
30 Apr 89

*********************************************

From Rev. Donna Schaper:

For some kinds of Christians,

 Easter is the end of personal gridlock,

when we find the door out of the grave cave,

the caged Calypso in our feet,

                         the fearful fatigue that tomorrow will be a lot like today.

It is the April of children street dancing,

 in their singing swinging bodies,

 not able to remember there was an earthquake yesterday.

It is the place beyond the frenzy of fear,

 even the cold possibility that betrayal may repeat itself.

At Easter our wandering is over, our hunger is fed, death lacks its usual dominion.

The imprisoned spirit breaks exile.

Alleluias spill out of our eyes, blessing the earth with tears of rain, joying the buds into blossoms.

Jesus dies, Jesus lives,

Jesus lives to live and die again,

and we see our own passions and our thresholds in his evening sitting at Resurrection’s Window Sill.

With Thanks to Thom Wolfe’s Ýou Can’t Go Home Again.

  

Easter: What Happened to Jesus?

by Walter Wink

CONSIDERING THE WEIGHT THE EARLY CHURCH ATTACHED TO THE resurrection, it is curious that, subsequent to the empty-tomb stories, no two resurrection accounts in the four Gospels are alike. All of these narratives seem to be very late additions to the tradition. They answer a host of questions raised by the gospel of the resurrection. At the core of all these accounts is the simple testimony: we experienced Jesus as alive.

A later generation that did not witness a living Jesus needed more; for them the resurrection narratives answered that need. But what had those early disciples experienced? What does it mean to say that they experienced Jesus alive? The resurrection appearances did not, after all, take place in the temple before thousands of worshipers, but in the privacy of homes or cemeteries. They did not occur before religious authorities, but to the disciples hiding from those authorities. The resurrection was not a worldwide historic event that could have been filmed, but a privileged revelation reserved for the few.

Nevertheless, something "objective" did happen to God, to Jesus, and to the disciples. What happened was every bit as real as any other event, only it was not historically observable. It was an event in the history of the psyche. The ascension was the entry of Jesus into the archetypal realm. Though skeptics might interpret what the disciples experienced as a mass hallucination, the experience itself cannot be denied.

This is what may have happened: the very image of God was altered by the sheer force of Jesus being. God would never be the same. Jesus had indelibly imprinted the divine; God had everlastingly entered the human. In Jesus, God took on humanity, furthering the evolution revealed in Ezekiel's vision of Yahweh on the throne in "the likeness, as it were, of a human form" (Ezek. 1:26). Jesus, it seemed to his followers, had infiltrated the Godhead.

The ascension marks, on the divine side, the entry of Jesus into the son-of-the-man archetype; from then on Jesus' followers would experience God through the filter of Jesus. Incarnation means that not only is Jesus like God, but that God is now like Jesus. It is a prejudice of modern thought that events happen only in the outer world. What Christians regard as the most significant event in human history happened, according to the Gospels, in the psychic realm, and it altered external history irrevocably. Ascension was an "objective" event, if you will, but it took place in the imaginal realm, at the substratum of human existence, where the most fundamental changes in consciousness take place.

Something also happened to the disciples. They experienced the most essential aspect of Jesus as remaining with them after his death. They had seen him heal, preach, and cast out demons, but had localized these powers in him. Though the powers had always been in them as well, while Jesus was alive they tended to project these latent, God-given powers onto him. They had only known those powers in him. So it was natural, after his resurrection, to interpret the unleashing of those powers in themselves, as if Jesus himself had taken residence in their hearts. And it was true: the God at the center of their beings was now indistinguishable from the Jesus who had entered the Godhead. Jesus, in many of the post-Easter son-of-the-man sayings, seems to speak of the Human Being (the "son of man") as other than himself. Was Jesus stepping aside, as he seems to do in the Gospels, to let the Human Being become the inner entelechy (the regulating and directing force) of their souls?

The disciples also saw that the spirit that had worked within Jesus continued to work in and through them. In their preaching they extended his critique of domination. They continued his life by advancing his mission. They persisted in proclaiming the domination-free order of God inaugurated by Jesus.

The ascension was a "fact" on the imaginal plane, not just an assertion of faith. It irreversibly altered the nature of the disciples' consciousness. They would never again be able to think of God apart from Jesus. They sensed themselves accompanied by Jesus (Luke 24:13-35). They found in themselves a New Being that they had hitherto only experienced in Jesus. They knew themselves endowed with a spirit-power they had known only occasionally, such as when Jesus had sent them out to perform healings (Mark:7-13). In their struggles with the powers that be, they knew that whatever their doubts, losses, or sufferings, the final victory was God's, because Jesus had conquered death and the fear of death and led them out of captivity.

Jesus the man, the sage, the itinerant teacher, the prophet, even the lowly Human Being, while unique and profound, was not able to turn the world upside down. His attempt to do so was a decided failure. Rather, it was his ascension, his metamorphosis into the archetype of humanness that did so for his disciples. The Human Being constituted a remaking of the values that had undergirded the domination system for some 3,000 years before Jesus. The critique of domination continued to build on the Exodus and the prophets of Israel, to be sure. But Jesus' ascension to the right hand of the Power of God was a supernova in the archetypal sky. As the image of the truly Human One, Jesus became an exemplar of the utmost possibilities for living.

Could the son-of-the-man material have been lore that grew up to induce visions of the Human Being? Could it have been a way to activate altered states of consciousness based on meditation on the ascended Human Being enthroned upon the heart? It was not enough simply to know about the mystical path. One needed to take it.

The ascension was real. Something happened to God, to Jesus, and to the disciples. I am not suggesting that the ascension is nonhistorical, but rather that the historical is the wrong category for understanding ascension. The ascension is not a historical fact to be believed, but an imaginal experience to be undergone. It is not at datum of public record, but divine transformative power overcoming the powers of death. The religious task for us today is not to cling to dogma but to seek a personal experience of the living God in whatever mode is meaningful.

Walter Wink is professor emeritus of Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City and author of 16 books. He is best known for his trilogy on "The Powers" and his fascinating interpretation of Jesus' teachings on nonviolence.

The Spiritual Meaning of the Resurrection by Joseph McCloskey, S.J.

Resurrection is God's personal response to who we are. The heart of
Jesus pierced on Calvary blankets us with the blood of salvation. The
warmth of Christ's love touches the loose ends of our lives. Christ has
died for us and we want to be with him forever. Resurrection is much
more than a destiny; it is the fulfillment of love. Christ's love of the
Father, even to death on the cross, promises a stake in heaven when we
own Christ's death. The Cross and Resurrection of Christ are our
salvation and our foothold in heaven.

ENERGIZER

Resurrection ought to be an integral part of us. Resurrection implies
many simple statements of our faith. God is in our world! He loved us so
much that he sent his only Son to redeem us! God let His only Son die
ignominiously on a cross! Resurrection should not be something we are
vaguely waiting for after we die. The destiny to be with God forever is
part of who we are now in God's love. Christianity is living the death
and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Our love of God needs the resurrection
as an energizer. Christianity without the resurrection is a mockery of
God's love. God wants us with him. Wanting to be with God is the force
of the Resurrection touching our lives now. People without hope have the
resurrection as a missing link in their lives. A continual growth of
resurrection's meaning in our lives gives us a firmer foothold on
heaven.  Christ's death calls us to our own resurrections. The
difference resurrection makes in our lives defines the final meaning of
life. Knowing what awaits us in the resurrection surpasses our powers of
imagination. The ?infinite ocean of mercy? of the Sacred Heart
resolves doubts about personal resurrection. On the day we die all
question marks will be removed by Christ's loving heart. The mystery
will be over, and we will know how worthwhile it was to respond to that
love.

VICTORY ALREADY WON

The Resurrection involves us personally with Christ. He claims our
hearts when we look up at his cross. Seeing Mary and the young John
standing close by, we can feel a part of that scene. Christ says to his
Mother: "...Behold your Son!"(John 19:26) Christ is really speaking to
us when he says to John: "Behold your mother!" Christ dying on the cross
tells each of us his mother Mary is to be our mother and we are to
belong to her in a special way. Our hearts expand on the journey to
Calvary with even a glimpse of what happened. The resurrection brings
victory to the death on the hill of Calvary. Our Eucharistic acclamation
of faith, "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again,"
proclaims our hearts HOPE in the victory already won.

NOW JOURNEY

The resurrection had its beginning on the hill of Calvary. Going from
the Christ on the cross to the Christ of the resurrection encompasses
our lifetime. We envision this Christ of the resurrection at the end of
our lives as someone we are going to meet, see and touch. If the
resurrection is going to motivate our lives, then our hope of the
resurrection should be expressed every day of our lives. The
significance of saying "yes" to living the resurrection does not
automatically change our lives. Our "yes" to now changes our lives. Now
always touches eternity.

FULLY ALIVE

The Resurrection gives rise to a consideration of heaven. To live fully
demands having a meaning to our lives beyond the present moment. Trauma
in our lives blocks the memory of a hurt and keeps us from facing what
resembles the bad experience. Unable to move toward something
pain-filled in our lives, we fine in resurrection a motive for looking
at even hard things in our lives. We get hints for the meaning of our
pain in the historical life of Christ whose heart, opened on the cross,
tells us something about ourselves. People search for the meaning of
their lives in many different ways. Faith, searching for deeper faith,
begins with an answer and becomes meaningful in the Risen Christ.
Christ's love calls us to an even deeper understanding of self, based on
the realization that in Christ we have a foothold in heaven NOW. The
resurrection helps us face life's difficulties. The Resurrection brings
something beautiful to the pain, poverty, and displacement which wrack
the human frame. Marx called religion the opium of the poor. Our opium
should be the resurrection. Graces received from the resurrection lift
us up to confront life's problems with confidence and excitement.

COMPLETION


Christ was filled with joy when he returned to his Apostles with the
gift of his peace. Touched by Christ's resurrection his joy becomes our
joy. Resistance to the resurrection comes from fear of death. The
resurrection, source of hope in its promise of new life, offers the
treasure for living well. The resurrection of Christ allows us to hope
for what we missed during life. Christ came that we might all have a
share in his life. We would like to have him around us all the time.
Even as Christ came back to his disciples and friends, the resurrection
promises us the chance to return to those with whom we would like to
have stayed. The resurrection will be the opportunity to finish
everything we have left undone. Love has a need to give the best of
everything to the beloved. The problem with responding to Christ's gift
is our love often fails to meet the standard of the all given on the
cross. The resurrection is the unfinished being finished and the
incomplete being completed. All the love we have had for our friends on
earth attains its ultimate meaning in Christ. The fullness of our union
with Christ opens our hearts to all that was missing in our friendships.
The resurrection is the completion of all in Christ. Love, begun in
time, needs the promise of the forever of Christ's resurrection.

RESTLESSNESS

Resurrection is the goal reached. Until then our souls are constantly
restless. We can perhaps kid ourselves that we have found what we have
been searching for all of our lives. The fact is, that even when we
think we possess the most joy and excitement of life we have ever had,
we are already looking for something more. As soon as something starts
to repeat itself and we know we have the wherewithal to handle the
problem with which we are dealing, the restlessness begins. It is hardly
noticed at first because there is the hustle and bustle of things to be
done to get caught up and stay current. Eventually we have gone as far
as we can go. Horizons, where we could go on forever, are barely touched
before we are pulled off in other directions. We stake out a territory
and try to claim a meaning to our lives which has to do with the job we
are doing. In truth, the territory now has other bosses and the job gets
done whether we are there or not. We grow in the realization that the
job was not the meaning of our lives. We discover, in our relationship
to Jesus Christ the true meaning of our lives. He is the goal for which
we are made. In him we can find all that is missing. Our foothold in
heaven is the destiny of each of us, and in finding Christ we will have
the truth of ourselves even as we accept his peace and can rest IN HIM
contented FOREVER.

FAMILY NAME

Joy and peace abound when the goal of reaching Christ is attained. It
is Christ who will bring us to the Father. It is Christ who, by dying
for us, will give us belonging. We can imagine Christ's joy as he says
to his Mother and his disciples: ?I am his son.? What is now humanly
known to him by hearing his Father call HIS name, is ALSO knowable by
us. The Father is his Father, and the Father is our Father. Baptism puts
Christ in Our Souls. The flowering of baptism is our dying by which we
are called to eternal life. The resurrection is the rite of coming of
age in heaven. Acceptance is then for us in his name. The statement of
the goal reached is made in hearing ourselves called by his name. We
recognize that name, and the way that it is said gives us cause to
believe that we really do belong; we really are part of his family. All
of our lives we strive to be accepted for ourselves, and suddenly we
know that acceptance is in being called by the "family" name.

REALLY CHRIST

We are called by his name because we are meant to be other Christs.
Baptism gave us not only his life, but also the right to his presence in
our life. Christ becomes the source of the resurrectional grace in our
hearts. That which we have no right to expect happens; the Father is our
Father. The Parable of the Prodigal Son says it so simply; the return of
the sinner to the family makes our Father happy. Our life in the
resurrection makes a difference to God. We do not have to wait for
heaven to enjoy his life. There is nothing unimportant in our lives.
Real freedom is doing what Christ has revealed as love for the Father.
The Commandments themselves are the truth of our belonging to God. How
much we love Christ is seen in our living the Commandments. What we
could have spent years figuring out for ourselves has been revealed to
us from the earliest years of our lives in the commandments of God. God
has revealed the secret of happiness in the comanments.
FACT OR FICTION

The resurrection is the greatest of all the gifts which has been given
to us by God or it is an outrage and a magnificent deceit foisted on the
human race. Are we willing to say that the resurrection is our life's
greatest dream? Are we willing to say that because of the resurrection
we are willing to promise ourselves never to commit a mortal sin, never
even to commit a venial sin, or even to walk into an ambiguous
situation? Are we willing to be at a point in our lives where every
person we have ever known suddenly becomes one person in the Christ of
the resurrection? If we can convince ourselves Christ is in everyone,
then every person in our lives will begin to make sense in the
resurrection of Jesus Christ. We will be able to take up the need, the
hurt, and the pain of everyone who comes into our lives. If we do not
see the resurrection as making a difference, here and now, then we have
to face up to the fact that we have been conned, taken for a ride, made
a part of the greatest hoax in history.

THE PROMISE

How do we know if the resurrection makes a difference? The answer is so
simple. Look at the altar of sacrifice. The bread and wine offered on
that altar signify Christ's promise of everlasting life to those who eat
his body and drink his blood. We come before the Eucharistic table
asking for this moment be really present to the life, death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Eucharist is the celebration of the
Last Supper and the death of Jesus. The resurrection can not be left out
of this celebration. The resurrection mystery is part of an equation
which is death plus resurrection equals the victory of Christ. Christ,
who is in heaven is in the Eucharistic mystery now a reality here on
earth! Eucharist by touching the resurrection gives all of us access to
our foothold in heaven. When a priest holds up the bread and says: "This
is my body," he has entered into the power of the resurrection. It is
the event of two thousand years ago. By those words the priest has
committed his life and the lives of those who celebrate with him to
Eucharist. All have been joined together in the power of Christ's
promise of eternal life. Past, present, and future meet. The expression
of faith: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again,
becomes an alive moment! Christ is not only present in Eucharist, but
the gift of every heart now comes together with Christ's resurrectional
friendship. We allow our lives, in varying degrees, to be absorbed into
the power of the resurrection. We allow our lives and the sacrifice we
offer to make a difference. We say "yes" to living the resurrection. We
respond by freely offering up to the Lord all that we do. The
resurrectional grace which makes this possible is found in Eucharistic
faith and in the sharing of the Eucharistic Meal.

CHRIST TODAY IN US

How does the resurrection meet with the nitty-gritty of every day life?
How can we take up our cross and follow Christ if he died two thousand
years ago? The death is over! Christ has the glory of the resurrection!
How does this most sacred, solemn and touching moment here on earth
become the same sacrifice? The mystery is more than we can ever fully
appreciate. The Resurrectional Church celebrates the Resurrectional
Christ. Christ who embraces us with his life of resurrection lives that
same sacrifice in us. Our suffering belongs to this mystery, belongs to
the resurrection of Christ. It is much more of a real sacrifice to us
than we could ever have imagined because it is our sacrifice. Our joy at
filling up what is wanting to the suffering of Christ's body, his
church, - makes Christ's sacrifice real in our lives today. In Christ,
our sacrifice becomes his Resurrectional sacrifice. His once and for all
death of two thousand years ago becomes, in us, the same sacrifice. We
fill up what is wanting to the Body of Christ by what we do for his
church.

CENTERPIECE OF CHRISTIANITY

Every widow, every separated or divorced person, everyone who is
lonely, old, hurt, weak and broken - for whatever reason, whatever
outrage - live in the power of the cross of Christ by the hope of the
resurrection. If we break off the resurrection from the cross of Christ
in our lives, suffering obviously makes no sense. If we are living our
lives in such a way that we do not honestly see in the resurrection of
Christ some sense to what we are suffering in our daily lives, our pain
of not being able to live up to responsibilities of family or friends,
or whatever, has no meaning. Then Christianity is a mockery of what
God's love and mercy is all about. What we have to understand is that
the Sacrifice of Christ is the centerpiece of all Christianity. All of
the other Sacraments look toward what is done at the Eucharistic table
where the fullest expression of the Mystery of the Resurrection takes
place. Christ in our Eucharistic celebration claims all of our crosses
for the glory of our resurrection.

RECOGNITION OF CHRIST

Love means doing what is best for another. It challenges us to live up
to what is good and noble. It means living up to the Christ
relationship. Thus the gift is given of being one's self in Christ. We
have to reach an intense awareness of the Christ in our own hearts so
that we can honestly say to anyone we meet; ?My Christ recognizes your
Christ!? If we affirm that Christ, we empower each other to step forth
into the world in the name of Christ. If we do not have honor and
reverence for the Christ of another's heart, we do not truly love. The
recognition of Christ is the greatest gift we can give to anyone. The
power of the resurrection is expressed by the definition of Church which
calls it ?the People of God.? The beauty of the Church is that the
Resurrectional Church is truly the People of God! It is our
responsibility to do something about anything that upsets the rights or
needs of the poor. We will be judged before God on whether we did
something about the needs of the people around us. Christ lives in the
hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the infirm, and the incarcerated. Christ
identifies with all the needy. Anger is holy when it gives the energy to
be involved in the search for solutions to pain. Because we are the
Church as the People of God, it is our responsibility to live the power
of Christ's love. Our zeal for the poor expresses the power of the
resurrection to all those around us. Our hope to make a difference makes
hope a grace of the Resurrection. Christ is seen in what we try to do in
his name for the poor.

THE LIVING CHRIST

The resurrection needs to be a lived experience with others. Because
the resurrection belongs to the People of God, it is the shared
experience which Paul captured in his realization that the Church is the
Body of Christ. The special grace of being alive today is that we have
come a long way from the Mystical Body statement of Pius XII. We see the
Church as made up of the People of God. That brings us to the awareness
of the resurrectional grace which is contained in Matthew 25, 40:
"...insofar as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of
mine, you did it to me!" The meaning of our service to the least one of
our brothers and sisters is that Christ lives in the poor we serve.
Christ is in all of the suffering men and women of the world.  "Why are
you persecuting me?" (Acts 9:4) of Christ to Paul strikes fear into any
serious minded Christian. Christ told his disciples at the Last Supper
that if they were his followers they would be persecuted even as he was.
He never told us to criticize one another. If something is of God, and
has in it the life of the resurrection, it will survive no matter what
the enemies of Christ have to say about it. The seed of martyrs is the
seed of Christianity, where the life-blood of resurrection is passed on
to us. It would be terrible to discover in the resurrection we had been
against Christ. The good which people do belongs to Christ. That is why
scandal, even when it is the truth about someone, and especially
calumny, a lie about someone, are wrong. Champions of truth, once too
many times, can be the persecutors of Christ in their brothers and
sisters.

DRAWING POWER OF CHRIST

In the power of the resurrection, God becomes a friend. We have reason
to be comfortable with him and with each other. The only difficulty in
living the resurrection, in making it our way of life, will be in
letting God take care of everything. We can never fully fathom in a
moment of time the mystery of the resurrection. Images can tell us how
much a difference the resurrection makes. It might be compared to an
overloading of circuits with the energy of life. It is an expression of
love where the human is held together by the divine. The Father's love
brings Christ back to heaven. In us the resurrectional grace is our
humanness meeting a divine destiny. Christ's joy draws us toward
perfection. Just as perfect love generates a return, creation and birth
come back to the Father in our resurrections when death puts periods on
a life in time. Death and resurrection become the nativity of a life in
eternity.

CHIPS OF THE CROSS

Any moment in the life of Christ, the eternal Word of the Father, would
have been enough for our salvation. Christ went the extra mile to the
cross. Our extra mile can be found in the claim Christ has on our hearts
to go beyond the status quo. That we could want our Christ of the
resurrection to wipe out our enemies is the all too human experience of
anger. That we are called by the grace of the resurrection to announce
the forgiveness of Christ means that we have a reason for being willing
to accept our crosses. The lived experience of the resurrection does not
keep us out of trouble. In truth, it gets us into trouble because our
love takes us to where Christ is hurting. Christ is in the little ones
of the world. What we do for them, Christ takes as done for himself. We
may one day enjoy the excitement of our relationship to Christ in our
sufferings which can be like chips off the block of Christ's cross.
Christ came for, the forgiveness of sins. We can be his forgiveness. The
offering up of our chips for the sins of the world around us brings the
Lord's forgiveness to our world. Our sufferings can touch our brothers
and sisters as the forgiveness of the Resurrection.

ACCESS TO HEAVEN

Anything can be a signal of Christ's presence. Sometimes his presence
is too well hidden, disguised by the sinfulness of life. We need
Christ's help to break the code. Christ's hidden life, our awareness of
the importance of any moment, and our love for the cross of Christ, can
lead us toward the resurrection as a meaningful destiny in our lives.
Awareness of Christ in our daily lives contributes to the Resurrectional
Grace. This grace is the sum of the Christ experience in a person. The
excitement of the resurrection pushes the choice of God forever in
heaven. The hope for the resurrection is found in life. In the intensity
of a passionate love affair with Christ, the desire to be possessed by
Christ grows. Christ, our foothold in heaven, is our access to the
Father.

A FATHER?S LOVE

The resurrection, an embarrassment of riches, HAS A LIFE OF ITS OWN!
Just as it only takes a moment to love for a lifetime, the resurrection
is the Eternal Moment of a lifetime to express love. The lived
experience of Christ in our own lives makes each one of us a Child of
God. We have no right to expect love, but we can receive it. The very
mystery of creation includes the world which is always praising God just
by being what it was meant to be - it could not be anything else. Yet,
the love of God is such a mighty force that it goes out from him as a
force of life which is the creation mystery. A true human relationship
leaves us with our freedom. Perfect love generates a return. Any
incomplete act in the human race has the need of fulfillment. Christ, by
his death and resurrection, came to claim us for the Father. To say we
are adopted children says a great deal, but it does not say enough,
because, in the death of Christ for our sins, we become the recipients
of the very love that the Father has for Jesus Christ.

CLAIMED BY GOD

Thus, we love God, and God, because we are living as children in his
house, fills us with the power of the resurrection. This power enables
us to give away our lives in the name of the love of Christ. The journey
of life ends in the discovery of what makes our lives his life. In
Christ, two natures are found in one person. What we would never have
been able to understand about the nature of God (which is so much
mystery that it needs all of eternity to be said) is said in the human
nature of Christ in such a way that GOD MYSTERY IS HUMAN MYSTERY! The
human life of Christ is the perfect statement of the mystery of the
mercy and love of God. Humanity has been claimed by God, in Christ. We
can claim, by asking Christ to die for us, the flowering of that
relationship in our lives. We do not have to wait in line for God. We
can look within, through the power of the resurrection, to find the joy
that is the sign of God's presence in our lives. God is so much a lover
that he has been waiting all this time for us to want him. If there were
a hot-line, it would be in our hearts, as God waits for us to really
call out for him. Then, he could come as the Lover rather than the
Master.

THE SUN OF GOD

Resurrection speaks to our hearts. We need to love so much that we are
totally lost in our beloved. Some do not like Paul because he was so
"turned on" by Christ. He could make us feel like part-time Christians
in comparison. Paul grows on us as we grow in Christ as the one love of
our hearts. What you look at, you become. We find ways of looking at
Christ in our lives, and we find that he was there even when we were not
looking. Paul no longer seems so far out or out of reach in the way that
he loved Christ and spoke about him. The truth of the resurrection grace
is that the Son of God is like the morning sun. As Christ comes up in
our lives, the darkness is pushed away. With the rising of the Son of
God in our hearts in the power of the resurrection, we find him in so
many more ways in our lives in the hundredfold that come to us for
following him. The Resurrection makes us be treated all too well in his
Name.The resurrection can be an attracting force that focuses our hearts
on God. We go from a world divided to one where all hearts are one.
There is no longer anything that is unimportant. We do not miss a thing.
We have arrived where perfect giving and perfect receiving meet in the
beauty of how much the Father loves the Son and, through him, us. We are
truly the Communion of Saints, united through the resurrection in each
other's Christ. The Son of God shines brightly.


FREE CHOICE

Sometimes, we might feel like hitchhikers on the road of life. We are
going along with our thumbs out, waiting for someone who is on the way
to the Resurrection to stop and pick us up, take us along. If anything
is certain, at this moment of life, it is that we have to be willing to
get out there and drive our own cars to the Resurrection. We have to be
willing to get out of the traffic jams where we hide in the confusion of
what other people are doing, and get out there in front, willing to be
counted as one of those who belong to Christ. Love of the cross is a
sign and symbol of a genuine contemplative. It reflects our love of
Christ. The Resurrection is the sign and symbol of love expressed and
has an excitement for life whose meaning is belonging to Trinity where
all mysteries of life come to an end in God's life shared forever. God
is now understandable in Christ having been human; even as Christ the
human becomes the CHOICE of our belonging to God.

OUR BELIEF

The Resurrection can make a difference to us. When we have located one
reason for personal joy in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we have
found the uniqueness of our relationship to Christ. Then we have a
reason to love him so much we are willing to die for him. He already HAS
SHED HIS BLOOD which has passed into the soil of life. Our shedding our
blood brings a flowering of souls. Wet become part of Christ's Eucharist
by being his disciples in the carrying of our crosses for him to bring
his peace to our world. In the light of the Resurrection, we believe:

-        that Christ is our 'foothold' in heaven
-        that suffering and resurrection cannot be 'hyphenated; they must
be 'crossed'.
-        that if we face the cross without the Resurrection, Christianity
is a scandal and an outrage.
-        that the Resurrection, as our, hope, is in the person Christ.
-        that the world which was groaning for salvation has it in the
suffering, death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
-        that JOY is the infallible sign of the Resurrection.
-        that the resurrection is the fullness of the joy of life.
-        that if we treat someone as they can be with God's love, we call
forth the Resurrection of Christ in that person.
-        that if we look toward the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, we
become what we see.
-        that the Resurrection is lived by claiming it.
-        that the Resurrection is the fullness of life.
-        that eye has not seen and ear has not heard what awaits us in
the fullness of what Christ has won for us in his passion, death and
resurrection.

PRAYER  


Heavenly Father, you have sent your Son into our lives so we may be
touched with something of Divinity; that our hearts might be converted
to belong entirely to you; that we might know ourselves as special and
we possess within our hearts the power to carry us through every cross
to the Resurrection.

Help us to understand this Mystery. Send your Spirit upon us so that
filled with the love you gave the world by his second birth into heaven,
we might know the meaning of life in his Resurrection and claim its
meaning even now for our life here. Let the Resurrection really make a
difference in our lives. Allow us to be integrated into the mystery of
what we can be in the power and the glory of Christ's Resurrection.

Open us to the love that is claiming us as citizens of heaven in the
joys of Christ that are such a rich taste of what is coming. Mold us in
the power of this hope that is ours in Christ. Let him tell us again and
again how to be so totally your children we would never choose a passing
pleasure of this world before the joy of always being yours.Allow us to
be more united to your love each day. May our minds, hearts, and
feelings bring us closer and closer to you.
We would realize even now the joy of belonging totally to you so that
all we would choose would be chosen in the love we have for you in your
Son Jesus Christ. Let him be our foothold on heaven and our holiness now
and forever. Let our stony hearts be taken away. Give us Christ's heart
so we may all be of one mind and heart destined for his resurrection and
your love forever and ever. This we ask with all our hearts in his
Sacred Heart. Amen.

 ********************************

Preparing for Easter

Come to the Table: A Catholic Passover Seder for Holy Week invites 
Christians to appreciate more fully the Last Seder, where Jesus 
established the Eucharist as a sacrament. Developed for family and 
church use, includes: details with citations to Hebrew and Christian 
scripture; commentary about historical tensions between Christians 
and Jews, and conditions for reconciliation; meaning of Passover 
symbols and significance relative to the sacraments; traditional 
seder service adapted for home and parish use; English 
transliteration of Hebrew prayers; instructions for conducting the 
seder;  and guidelines for table and food preparation.

www.amazon.com/Come-Table-Catholic-Passover-Seder/dp/0976396203/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269272234&sr=1-4

When I was a child, my family celebrated Christian holidays in a fairly standard secular way, decorating a tree on Christmas and hunting eggs on Easter, not to mention joining in the customary consumption of marshmallow peeps, “jelly bird eggs” (whatever those are), and other foods invented by companies with a clever eye for turning a profit from a holiday.

My version of Easter lacks the radical Christian religiosity that Nichola laid out in her recent post about Good Friday as a time “to look at the crucifixions necessary to preserve the fiction of Pax Americana, or any false peace maintained by force, whether violent or hegemonic.” It lacks the progressive rethinking of the resurrection narrative that Rabbi Lerner highlighted in his spiritual wisdom of the week post with a quotation from Peter Rollins. But it’s still one of my favorite holidays of the year.

On its surface, the humanist Easter I grew up with may have seemed drained of meaning to religious onlookers, but it was actually highly ritualized and deep in its own way. I want to share my family’s three main rituals — an Easter eve afternoon of collaborative egg art, the collective reading aloud of a surprisingly feminist bunny book from the 1930s, and a morning of romping, outdoor egg hunts in bitter spring weather — as a resource for nonreligious families who want to celebrate a secular Easter that’s about more than just candy.

An Afternoon of Egg Art

There’s something deeply nourishing about spending hours making art in a group. The air becomes quiet, contemplative, and open. The contemplative air that settles over a group of people making art invites earnest, emotionally grounded communication. It creates a non-awkward silence — something hard to come by in our society. Creating art on something as fragile as an egg requires total concentration. One slip of the hand can (and does) smash half an hour’s work, so creating art on eggs can also offer practice in letting go. As a small child I dyed eggs by dipping them in edible dyes and using rubber-band-resist techniques. I’ve continued to keep up this tradition as an adult. Here are some eggs I dyed with friends in 2007:

In middle school I began experimenting with Ukrainian egg dyeing techniques, which involves melting beeswax over a candle, drawing patterns on eggs, and then dipping them into successive baths of brilliant (but somewhat toxic and non-edible) dyes. My friends and I spent hours dyeing the eggs and then holding them up to a candle flame afterward to melt off the wax and reveal the bright patterns.

A few years ago, my partner taught me yet another egg-dyeing technique involving drizzles of rubber cement and Ukrainian egg dyes. That’s how we spent yesterday afternoon (the picture at the top of the post is of the eggs we made). Here’s a process picture:

A Surprisingly Feminist Bunny Book

The most central Easter tradition throughout my childhood was the ritualized reading aloud of “The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes” a children’s book written in 1939 by Du Bose Heyward (who I just realized is also the author of the novel “Porgy” on which Gershwin’s opera was based) and illustrated by Marjorie Flack.

Just as “Porgy” has its heart in the right place but is far from a shining exemplar of anti-racist literature, “The Country Bunny” has a nice grrl-power punch but is by no means the best example of feminist literature around these days. However, I still love this book deeply and think it’s pretty progressive, more than seventy years after it was written.

Here’s the short version of the story: a young, brown cottontail girl bunny with funny country clothes announces her desire someday to become one of the world’s five Easter bunnies (an exalted position with great prestige and responsibility). All of the “big white bunnies who lived in fine houses” and the big masculine Jack rabbits laugh at her and tell her to “go back to the country and eat a carrot” and leave important labor like Easter egg delivery to big men bunnies like them. In the face of their sneering prejudice, the country bunny just says “you wait and see.”

The country bunny grows up but has to put her career aspirations on hold temporarily because one day, “much to her surprise,” she has twenty-one baby bunnies. (There is no mention ever of a husband or father bunny, so it seems like she was just enjoying the pleasure of being a mature woman rabbit but did not have access to comprehensive sex ed information or contraception …)

However, as a single mother and the manager of her family farm, the country bunny eventually gains recognition from the rabbit community for her wisdom, kindness, cleverness, and swift feet, and breaks through the glass ceiling to become the first female Easter bunny. Can you see why my four-year-old feminist heart was pounding a little? The story doesn’t end there, though … you’ll have to read the book for the whole tale.

A Muddy Romp Outdoors

The last ritual of my humanist Easter involves a morning of egg hunts, hiding the eggs we dyed the day before in the roots and branches of trees, or nestled in the grass. My parents used to invite over a big group of international students for Easter dinner, so egg hunts at my house were an opportunity for all of us to reach past our linguistic and cultural barriers and have some good fun outdoors. But most importantly, the egg hunts were a ritualized yearly time when we opened ourselves up to the frosty, muddy reality of early Wisconsin spring. I think Easter was often the first day that I really braved the cold long enough to notice how plants were actually starting to grow after the bitter winter. What a thrill to see the first crinkled rhubarb shoots starting to poke through the ground, or the tulips’ sharp green tips. Especially in colder climates, extended outdoor egg hunts offer an opportunity to meditate on the radical amazement of springtime, just as the earth starts to thaw.