The short reflections for each of the three days of Triduum were published as one piece in Spirituality Mar/Apr 2012; No. 101 under the title “The Paschal Mystery.”

Easter

Easter comes.

Into all of creation groaning for God’s salvation, Easter comes.

Into a weary world whose natural resources are squandered or hoarded or sold for profit, Easter comes.

Into communities and neighborhoods marred by poverty and violence, scarred by hopelessness and fear, Easter comes.

As an emphatic answer to our human and holy quest, Easter comes.

Into the deep yearning of our lives, lives that like exquisite garments bear the moth-eaten pock marks from betrayal, duplicity, pettiness, callousness, and moments when like Jesus we felt completely abandoned by God, Easter comes.

Out of nowhere, out of death, out of the heart of darkness which was caged and cradled in the heart of God, Easter comes.

As the too-good-to-be-true good news, as the inconceivable new possibility, as the answer of amazing grace, Easter comes.

But does Easter not also come as an ongoing question, as even more than the great gift from the great mercy of God? Once graciously and jubilantly received, does Easter not also ask something of us, dare I say it, require something of us? And is that not too an amazing surprise, an equally unexpected and unearned gift? Was it not already an embarrassment of riches to be created as images of God, to be deemed children of God, to be called people of God without also being showered with this final bequest, to be invited to be partners of God?

But how do we do this? How do we give away even a piece of the garment of new life with which God has so lavishly clothed us? Perhaps the words of the poet Wendell Berry are enough food for thought and action today and during this season of the Rising Son:

“Practice resurrection.”♦

These reflections on Triduum appear as one article here:
http://www.thesacredbraid.com/the-written-word/articles/triduum/the-paschal-mystery/

Check out other articles here: http://www.thesacredbraid.com/the-written-word/articles/