Easter Entry Points
“Your life is hidden with Christ in God.” – Col 3:3
Easter came early for me this past week. As soon as I visited the campus of the Ateneo de Manila in the Philippines, many memories flooded my soul. Everywhere I turned on this campus where I’ve lived for almost two years, grace returned. One such glimpse of grace took place as I stood in front of a statue of St. Ignatius of Loyola giving up his sword before a Marian statue in Spain. What moved me almost thirty years ago when I first encountered this statue was reawakened within, namely how one person’s surrender in trust can ignite a revolution of goodness. St. Ignatius’ “giving over” his life to God inspired so many people to do likewise. Such trust encouraged countless Jesuits and lay partners to be a force of good through this grade school, high school, and university campus since 1859. As this memory and realization visited me, so did a deep sense of trust. I received a renewed confidence in God who has blessed me and everyone in Christus Ministries for the past ten years with life-giving goodness.
Easter still awaits me. Every day this past week, I visited a dear Jesuit brother and friend recovering from a kidney transplant. We had hoped to walk the campus to reenkindle our common friendship with Jesus and our passion for young people. Instead, we sat across a table, social distancing, and discussed his unexpected health complications. We also spoke about his heart, battered and broken as he confronts his dying body and a letting go of his desire to serve the youth. It has not been easy for him, nor for me. As I sat listening, painful feelings and thoughts flooded my awareness. Feelings of fear sitting by my grandmother’s bedside as she dies from kidney failure. Thoughts of worry and helplessness as I accompany three couples whose marriages are on the verge of death. Each time I visit my friend, instances of grief and dying revisit me.
I believe that consoling glimpses of grace and excruciating moments of mortality are entry points into the Paschal Mystery we celebrate this Easter Season. Indeed, Christ is Risen, two millennia ago and continues to break into our lives today. The Paschal Mystery, the passage through death to new life, continues to grow and deepens in each of our lives. It’s a Mystery we encounter, enter, and embrace. It is a feast worth celebrating today. It is a lived reality worthy of our participation, to which we say “yes” or “Alleluia”.
There are many entry points into the consoling joy of Easter. We are blessed to begin a season that lasts fifty days so that we can experience and proclaim that our “life is hidden with Christ in God.”
Risen One, which past memory or present painful reality do you beckon me to sit with you? How are you inviting me to witness your new or reawakened life in me?