Fr. Manuel João, comboni missionary
Sunday Reflection
from the womb of my whale, ALS
Our cross is the pulpit of the Word
Easter, the Day without sunset
Easter Vigil – Mark 16:1-7: “He is risen, he is not here.”
Easter Sunday – John 20:1-9: “The other disciple… saw and believed.”
Easter Evening – Luke 24:13-35: “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.”
“This is the day that the Lord has made: let us rejoice and be glad,” says the Easter Day psalm (Psalm 117). We have longed for this day, hoped for it, prepared for it, but we have not done it! The Lord has done it! There are some things, the things that really matter, that our hand cannot do. This day is God’s work, his masterpiece. In the first “holy week”, the week of creation, God had put order into chaos, creating time and space, “and behold, it was a very good thing” (Genesis 1:31). In this new week, Holy Week, God has freed his creation from the corruption of death, bringing eternity into time. “This has been done by the Lord: a marvel in our eyes,” the psalmist continues. Yes, a marvel we never dreamed of. Christ, “the Door”, has put earth in communication with heaven. Death is no longer the “door of no return”, but the gateway to the Day without setting.
At last a new thing under heaven!
“What has been will be
and what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
There is perhaps something to be said of:
‘Behold, this is new’?
This very thing has already happened
in the centuries that have gone before us.”
(Qohelet 1:9-10)
Behold, Qoèlet, this is a true NEW thing! A man, Jesus of Nazareth, whom death had swallowed up and the tomb had locked up, came forth alive, victorious over death. It was on 9 April in the year 30. Question the times past. Nothing like this had ever happened! The unbelievable has happened. And we are witnesses of it! Let us run, then, with hearts bursting in our chests, with tears of joy, after tears of despair, eager to tell everyone: Christ is risen!
And from now on everything changes. Nothing will be as before! Qoèlet, no longer hate life (2:17)! Proclaim no more”happy the dead, now departed, than the living who are still alive” (4:2)! Because…
“Death with life contended:
combat strangely ended!
Life’s own Champion, slain,
yet lives to reign…
Christ is truly risen
from the dead we know.”
(Easter Sequence)
From that 9 April, the missionary race began: “Go, tell his disciples and Peter, He is going before you into Galilee. There you will see him, as he has told you” (Mark 16:1-7, gospel of the vigil). And the followers of the ‘way’ (Acts of the Apostles 9:2 etc.), tireless – for one never tires when one’s heart is content! – have travelled all the streets and roads of all “Galilees”, the peripheries of the world, eager to communicate this Good News to all: Christ is risen!
The Risen One must be sought where there is life!
“You seek Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified. He is risen, he is not here”. If “he is not here”, where is he to be sought? Where life teems! Where one breathes new air! Not where life rots!…
One would have to wonder whether the new, spring-like air of the Risen One is breathed in our churches and assemblies. Unfortunately, it must be acknowledged that sometimes we breathe badly, there is a stale air in our ecclesial environments. We have become allergic to novelty, we do not want to be challenged by the new, by what does not fit into our old patterns of life and thought. Sometimes one gets the impression that the doors and windows thrown open by the Second Vatican Council have closed again. No wonder, then, that restless people, dissatisfied with today’s society and looking for a different world, go elsewhere where life ferments.
We say we love novelty, but in our own way. In reality we fear novelty, because it unsettles us and upsets our habitual rhythms. We prefer verbs of repetition: making the old new. That is why the two disciples of Emmaus were disappointed (Luke 24:13-35, the Easter evening gospel): “We were hoping that he was the one who would deliver Israel!” The apostles hoped the same before the ascension: “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom for Israel?” (Acts of the Apostles 1:6). The Lord, however, is not a “restorer” but an innovator: “Remember no more the past times, think no more of the former things! Behold, I am doing a new thing: right now it is sprouting, do you not see it?” (Isaiah 43:18-19).
Look at life from the right side: the third day!
“May Easter overcome our sin, shatter our fears and make us see sadness, sickness, abuse and even death, from the right side: that of the “third day”. From that side, the place of the Calvary will appear to us as Tabor. The crosses will look like antennas, placed there for us to hear the music of Heaven. The sufferings of the world will not be for us the gasps of agony, but the travails of childbirth.
And the stigmata left by the nails in our crucified hands, will be the loopholes through which we will already glimpse the lights of a new world!” (Don Tonino Bello).
Best wishes for a Happy Easter to all!
Fr. Manuel João Pereira Correia mccj
Verona, 27 March 2024
