April 1, 2016 – From Sr. Mary Pat Cook
Easter happened last weekend, and already we’re living off leftovers. We have returned to our routines, and locked ourselves into familiar patterns as the disciples locked themselves behind closed doors. It is good news indeed that there is no hiding from the Risen One.
-Bruce Sanguin, If Darwin Prayed It is so tempting to look at the Easter Christ with eyes focused on divinity. Surely this rising from death is an act reserved for a god. As we hear the stories – beginning with the women, of course – the faithful women – something beautifully human emerges. It’s not the divine we see. This Risen One is VERY human. He greets Mary Magdalen wandering dazed in the garden, calls her by name, aches for her to recognize him. He joins Cleophas and his companion (his wife?) leaving Jerusalem and on the road to Emmaus. They walk together and talk of all that has happened. He accepts an invitation to supper and he eats with them. He enters the locked room where the disciples are gathered and asks Thomas to touch him. This Risen One engages with his friends, eats with them, seeks their touch, their love and faith. He is VERY human. There is no hiding from this Jesus, this Christ. He initiates each encounter … and in each he draws these disciple-friends to believe not only in him but in themselves, in a new life that will be theirs. He empowers them (and us) to let go of the humanity they (and we) have known – to embrace, to proclaim a new way of being VERY human, to recognize the divinity inside each of us. A call to evolution before the word was invented. What is there to do but sing ALLELUIA!
(photo by Sr. Toby Lardie)
