PUTTING COVID19 IN ITS PLACE

We can't escape the fact that for the past year we've been experiencing everything in the context of the

Covid Pandemic. From planning the Olympics to practicing high school basketball, from the pandemic's dire effects on airlines and corner bodegas. 

We've grown used to (not to mention fatigued by) the pervasive presence of the coronavirus, and are reminded of it every time we put on our mask, distance ourselves from someone, or attend a meeting or a class over Zoom. And we mustn't forget the over 500,00 Americans who have died; for many of us the statistics are very real, they have names and faces 

This is our world - and it's not a pleasant picture. 

Easter, however, invites us to ask the question: "Which is the bigger reality? The Universal Christ who has conquered death, or the pandemic?" For a Christian, to think of "Easter in a time of Covid" seems to be getting things completely backwards. The background against which we experience the events of our lives is not the pandemic at all, but rather the Easter Event: By dying and rising, Christ has conquered death and has brought us with Him. This Easter Event is the central fact of our existence, of our entire universe, and provides the background, the context, the "wallpaper" against which we experience everything in our lives, whether good or bad, happy or sad, including the Covid19 pandemic and everything about it.

For a Christian, then, the challenge is to experience the pandemic in the light of the Easter mystery, to put the pandemic in its proper context. Maybe the key here is to think in terms of the "Paschal Mystery," an expression that has come up in recent posts. The paschal mystery, which is the central belief of every Christian, refers to Christ's suffering-death-resurrection as a single event, in which the three seemingly separate experiences of Christ are inseparable from one another. And, of course, this is true of or own suffering and dying: they are part of that same Paschal Mystery that always ends in victory over death.

All of the suffering that is connected with the pandemic is, then, somehow, mysteriously, a participation in the sufferings of Christ, and of his death and resurrection. 

In the light of the Paschal Mystery, all of this Covid suffering has meaning. With our limited intellects, we can't understand the meaning yet; but with the eyes of faith we can see that it's all part of God's infinitely mysterious love for each of us.     

KINDERGARTEN LESSON

     To be honest, I'm not looking forward to writing this post. In the past ten days or so I've been going to funerals and interments and memorial masses, and reading emails about people dying. These were all people whom I considered friends, some of them close friends, all of them age-mates and a couple of classmates from grammar school or high school. This number went way beyond the superstition that deaths come in threes. Maybe sevens? 

These days have been filled with bereaved spouses, weeping grandchildren, sad relatives, somber friends and bagpipers.  After I return from a funeral mass on Thursday my guardian angel guides me past the kindergarten classroom. I peek in and see that they're beginning a new activity. The teacher sees me and motions me to step in (as I do once or twice a week). 

"Good afternoon Father Albert. God bless you!"  

"Good afternoon, children! It's so good to see you!" I have to imagine their smiles, since all of us are wearing our masks.

On the SmartBoard is written "I want to go to ..." and each child has a sheet of wide-lined paper with those same words copied more or less legibly on the top line. 

The teacher asks, "Who would like to start? If you could go any place in the world, where would you go?" I immediately think of so many places I would love to go. I settle on New Zealand.

Hands go up in different corners of the socially distanced room. 

"Natasha? Where do you want to go?"

"The park."

"Okay! Very good! Let me write that up here on the board. Who's next? Marvin? 

"I want to go to my brother's house."

"Good! Remember, now, anywhere in the world. Kayla?"

I'm waiting for some choices that are a little more exotic. 

"Shop Rite." 

Then it dawns on me that the experiential world of a kindergartner from a poorer neighborhood starts out pretty narrow. The park, my brother's house, the supermarket. As I stand there with my visions of New Zealand and the rusty rocky surface of Mars, I start to see a connection between the narrow view of the world of many of these little kids and the funerals I've been attending: You might call it tunnel vision. 

What if you believe that what you see and experience in this present world is all that you get? What if there's nothing more after you die? This is tunnel vision, in which you miss the really important stuff, the whole meaning of your existence. And all you can see is the Shop Rite. 

All of the grieving spouses of the people whose deaths I've heard about in the past couple of weeks have something in common: They all believe in the resurrection. Even in the midst of the agony of grieving, there is that unspoken underlying faith that they will be reunited with their loved one someday, and that he or she is in fact present to us even now in a new and different way. 

The church's prayers for the ceremonies at wakes, funerals and burials express this faith beautifully, even if the mourners don't have the words themselves at the time. I'm thankful every time I hear these prayers, especially if I'm the one praying them aloud for the assembly.

The ceremony starts with the greeting of the body at the door of the church at the beginning of the funeral, when the celebrant sprinkles the casket with holy water and says: 

With this water we call to mind N’s baptism. As Christ went through the deep waters of death for us, so may he bring N to the fullness of resurrection and life with all the redeemed.

Then the ceremonies end when the funeral procession arrives at the cemetery and the minister prays: Our sister N. has gone to her rest in the peace of Christ. May the Lord now welcome her to the table of God’s children in heaven. With faith and hope in eternal life, let us assist her with our prayers. Let us pray to the Lord also for ourselves. May we who mourn be reunited one day with N.; together may we meet Christ Jesus when he who is our life appears in glory.

From beginning to end, then, the Catholic funeral rites encourage and console us with the infinitely wide vision of the resurrection that we will all one day share with the risen Lord. We need to rely on that hope, and not let our grief narrow our vision to this world and to our overwhelming grief and pain. 

"I lift up my eyes to the mountains" (Psalm 121)  -- way, way beyond the park or the Shop Rite.

ARE YOU THE ONE?.

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This past week started with a death. When I arrived at the Benedictine sisters' priory of St. Walburga in Elizabeth to say morning mass, I was greeted with the news that their beloved Sister Damien had died just a couple of hours before at the age of 101. There was a thoughtful sobriety about the convent that morning.

Then, Thursday was the first anniversary of the death of my brother, Richard. So, I was preparing myself for a day of quiet remembering of this wonderful "big brother" who had been such a great influence in my early life. But my reflecting on his anniversary was cut short when it was announced to the school community that 58-year-old Bill Petrick, our Freshman English teacher, had died suddenly on the way to school that morning. 

It was just a couple of weeks ago that a 28-year-old History teacher had succumbed to cancer. Grief was piling up on our community. We tried to take care of the kids as best we could by inviting them to visit the counselling center, and by inviting them to talk frankly about the experience in many of our classes.

In class on Friday morning, I told my sophomores how rotten I was feeling over these deaths. When I asked them if they thought it was okay for a priest-monk to feel so sad about friends or loved ones dying, at least one student answered immediately that no, priests aren't supposed to feel sad when people die. I straightened him out fast, believe me, explaining that grieving is a very human and healthy thing, as Jesus and lots of saints have always insisted.

SO WHAT?

Of course, the mystery of death is way deeper than our human intellect's ability to fathom; but we still want to look for some shape, some sense in the face of any tragedy. As I was talking to my sophomores about our various experiences of grieving and our attitudes toward death, I thought of an incident that had given me a little perspective on my grief a year ago, so I shared it with them. I think it's worth sharing with you here.

I'm sitting in the funeral parlor at my brother's wake, when along comes my four-year-old grand-niece Gracie. She stops in front of me and stares inquisitively for a moment or two. She knows that she's seen me a few times before at family gatherings. Unfortunately, though, she hasn't had the chance to get to know me, and even less of a chance to know her other great-uncle, my deceased brother. 

As she stands and stares inquisitively at me, I can tell she's preparing to ask one of those questions that four-year-olds are so good at. Finally she asks me,

"Are you the one who died?"

ARE YOU THE ONE?

Luckily, I know the answer to this one right away: "No, Gracie. The one who died is uncle Dick. I'm uncle Albert." I keep a straight face the whole time, I'm proud to say.

Over time, though, her question has kept coming back to me as an Easter question: Am I not supposed to die every day with Christ so as to rise again with him in his victory over death and sin?

Each night in my examination of conscience I ought to be asking myself, When did I die today? Did I take every opportunity offered me to die to myself so as to live with Christ? For example, did some student in need ask me to die a little to myself by going out of my way to help him? Did I overcome a temptation, say, to cut short my prayer time and instead die to my own desires in order to "waste" some more time with the Lord?

Gracie's question is a haunting help to me every day: "Are you the one who died?"

With the Lord's help, I hope that I can answer her, "Well, Gracie, I'm working on it."

BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS

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This week has been a swirl of endings and beginnings, some of them little and others momentous, although it’s not always easy to tell one from the other.

ENDINGS. Wednesday I finally emailed to Liturgical Press the manuscript of a possible book Easter meditations -- definitely felt like an ending. That night my cousin Peggy in Pittsburgh passed away; she had been very sick in recent weeks; another ending. The readings at mass this past week have been referring to the “end time,” when Christ will come again; that qualifies as an ending, right.

Annunciation - Rosetti

BEGINNINGS. Of course, the First Week of Advent marks the beginning of a new liturgical year. Then, on Thursday night postulant Mark Dilone began his year-long novitiate period -- a beginning that’s a great sign of hope for our monastery. The next day, the gospel reading for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Mary was Luke’s account of the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel greets the maiden Mary with strange news: God is on the move again, but this time the Word is to become flesh and will dwell among us as one of us; that’s more than new, it’s unheard-of.  

TWO FACES. Most philosophers have realized that beginnings are also endings. The Romans had this god called Janus, the god of doorways and thresholds. His image often appeared above the lintels of Roman houses: a head with two faces looking in exactly opposite directions. Janus didn’t have to decide if he was blessing a going or a coming, a beginning or an ending on any specific occasion.

The Israelites' faith had a similar insight: God is the God of history, and the darkest of times always gave way to new and brighter realities, and things that looked like endings usually turned out be beginnings of something new that God has planned.

PASCHAL PARADOX

The pairing of endings and beginnings is brought to a climax in the Christian faith in the paschal mystery: What appears to be the end of Jesus's life (his death and burial) marks the beginning of something not just new, but immeasurably better, a transformed, immortal life in which all of us will eventually share.

So, as I drive out to Pittsburgh for the funeral, I’ll have lots to think about. During this season when we chant "O Come, O come, Emmanuel," we're also praying for the coming of the One who conquers death itself, and who assures us that Peggy's death is also the beginning of her life in the presence of God, who is Love -- boundless, perfect Love.

WAITING WITH MAGDALENE

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SITTING AT THE TOMB

Matthew’s account of Good Friday ends with these verses:

So Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock. He then rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb. (Mt 27:59-61)

During our simple, somber service of Vigils this Holy Saturday morning, we monks took up our post, sitting beside the tomb with Mary Magdalene. As we prayed the psalms, I began wondering what was going through her mind as she sat there? What was she feeling? I don’t imagine that on that first Holy Saturday she was waiting for her beloved Jesus to rise from the dead and walk out of the tomb. She must have been overwhelmed by grief.

But, then, what about us, who have already encountered the Risen Lord? What is it that we are waiting for as we sit beside the sealed tomb with her? Certainly, we’re waiting for Easter morning to come, so that we can celebrate and sing and shout “Alleluia!” But, the Paschal Mystery (Christ’s passion, death and resurrection) should also make a difference in the way we live every day.

The expression “expectant church” came to mind as the rising sun was brightening the stained-glass windows. Although “expectant church” has several meanings, I simply reflected on the expression from the point of view of the Latin verb expectare, “to await.”

I began to ask myself if we Christians look like an “expectant church” when we settle into a comfortable truce with the materialism and self-centered culture around us. Do we act like an “expectant church” when we quarrel among ourselves over liturgical practices or changing translations of texts? The expression “sacristy church” came to mind as well -- a church that is turned inward, concerned only about itself and its inner power struggles and institutional concerns.

Another expression occurred to me, from the prayer after the “Our Father” at mass: “as we wait in joyful hope.” That became my prayer as we finished the psalms and readings of Vigils.  

Lord, help your church to be a sign of joyful hope to the world. Help her, by her actions, to be a church of the poor, of the alien, of the persecuted, and especially a church that is a sign for those whose lives are filled with darkness and despair. Help us to be “Easter People,” each of us an Alleluia from head to toe, even as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Alleluia.

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A BLESSED EASTER!

      

CLICK TO DELETE?

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Earlier this week, in preparing a talk on the Sacrament of Reconciliation, I reflected on one common way of thinking about the sacrament: our souls are washed clean of guilt and, in the eyes of God, our sins are annihilated. I thought of the option on the pull-down menu in my computer’s search engine: “Erase Search History.” With a left-click all the searches I’ve made disappear as if  they’d never happened.

Then I came across this rather provocative idea: “In the strict sense, our sins are not obliterated as if they had never happened. God does not erase our history.”

Christ reigning from the cross

Think of the main idea of the Paschal Mystery, the central mystery of our faith: By means of his passion, death and resurrection, Christ has redeemed us. He overcame death, so that it no longer holds power over us. The best-known symbol of our religion, the cross, signifies that Christ’s death has become the means of our salvation. The Paschal Mystery does not say that Christ’s resurrection erased his suffering on the cross, nor does it say that the appearances of the risen Lord obliterated his death.

Christ’s horrible suffering and death, rather than being obliterated, have been completely transformed, and, incredibly, have become the very means of our salvation. St. Paul writes “We know that all things work for good for those who love God (Rom 8:28)”  and St. Augustine adds, “even their sins.” Even our sins work for good! Through Christ’s suffering and death, our sins our transformed, and God uses them as steps toward our salvation. Just as the Almighty draws life from death, he somehow manages to draw good from our sins.

As we begin the season of Lent this Wednesday, then, we might keep in mind the vision of the Sacrament of Reconciliation as a personal encounter between me and the Redeeming Christ, the Crucified and Living One. Once I humbly own my sins, he takes them and, far from obliterating them, makes them his own and transforms them into the means of my salvation.

 

INVITATION TO A PILGRIMAGE

During this Lent, I hope that many of you will join me once again on a forty-day pilgrimage from Ash Wednesday to Easter using the book Pilgrim Road: A Benedictine Journey Through Lent.

HAVE BLESSED, GRACE-FILLED LENT!

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DIE?

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SOME HARD QUESTIONS

This morning the monks are celebrating our annual mass for the faithful departed of our wider family of friends, alumni, benefactors, relatives and so on. It seemed appropriate for me to spend my meditation time this morning reflecting on the question that we have all wondered about since we were little kids: “Just what happens after you die?”

We tend to answer in terms of the Greek philosophical mentality: Your body dies but your soul survives and goes to heaven.  We throw around the word soul pretty liberally when speaking about our heavenly reward.

But this language poses a problem for us Christians. In two words, the problem is “Jesus Christ.” The Creed says that he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. So, we believe that Jesus is “in heaven.” But earlier in the creed we say that he was born of the virgin Mary and became man. Jesus is not a soul, but a human, a body-soul composite; his bodiedness is an essential part of the Word-made-Flesh.

So, if Jesus is in heaven, that state must necessarily involve his body. We can safely conclude, then, that our existence in heaven will also involve our bodies and not just our souls. St. Thomas Aquinas said, “Anima mea non est ego,” “My soul is not me.” I am an embodied spirit, or an enspirited body, so somehow my eternal reward will involve my body. By the way, that is why we must be good to our bodies and treat them with reverence and care: they are going to be ours forever and ever.

Okay, but this belief poses a new set of questions. (The Sadducees were happy to point out one of them to Jesus in last Sunday’s gospel.) If my body will be mine in heaven, just how old will my body be? Twenty-five? Will my hair be black again? What about the widow who has remarried: whose wife will she be in heaven? The questions sound sensible, but lead to some ridiculous head-scratching.

A PIECE OF THE MYSTERY

So, we’re stuck, it seems. How does all this work? We do not understand, we cannot understand it. That’s the definition of a “mystery.” A mystery refers not to something completely incomprehensible, but rather to a truth which is so vast that we can only understand parts of it, and will never come to understand it completely. We have to be content with grasping pieces of it.

Those troubling questions such as “how old will I be in heaven” are based on a misunderstanding of the whole mystery of the resurrection of the body. I would like to offer one idea that might help us understand a piece of the mystery. It has to do with the ideas of “change” and “transformation.”  

A stalactite in a cavern "changes" by having minerals deposited on it over time: it gets bigger, but it’s still, no matter how big, just a stalactite. But living things change in a different way.

Think of an acorn. An acorn doesn't just get bigger and bigger. Its whole purpose is not to be the biggest acorn around, but rather to stop being an acorn and become an oak tree. It dies to being an acorn. Even little children understand this fact: you never hear a kid point to an oak tree and shout “Look at the big acorn.” We don’t look a a butterfly and call it a caterpillar, or listen to a frog and call it a tadpole.  What's involved here is a process called transformation: a thing stops being what it is in order to become something else.

This is true of us humans as well. St. Basil said, “Man is a being whose purpose is to become God.” The promise is not that we will each “come back to life” the way Lazarus did, or the widow’s son. Jesus did not come back to life, but rose glorious and immortal. He was transformed: He was somehow the same, but was transformed. The gospels wrestle with this mystery when Jesus shows the apostles his wounds (It’s really the same me!”) but then he can walk through closed doors, and is unrecognizable to Mary Magdalene (He is completely different!).

When we rise again one day with Jesus, we to will be transformed. We become something new, transformed in the dimension of God, where time and space are transcended; but our transformed bodies are definitely part of the deal: we are fulfilled beyond our ability to imagine right now, with a joy beyond all telling.

ACT NOW!

Transformation, though, is also a process. The process of becoming Christ, as it were, can and should start now by dying to ourselves through selfless actions, and dying to our base impulses through self-restraint.

November is the month when we remember our brothers and sisters who have gone before us, but it’s also the month when we think about our own mortality as the dead leaves start blowing at our feet. Thanksgiving Day, appropriately, gives us an opportunity to contribute to our own transformation in Christ, to die to ourselves, by being generous to people who are in need.

So, as we pray for those members of the communion of saints who have gone before us, let us be conscious of our need to cooperate with divine grace and begin our transformation today into what we will be one day: a transformed person in the Risen Lord.

THE CROSS ON KING BOULEVARD

I was thinking this morning about the college student who was killed last week in his frat house down the block, apparently by a burglar. About him and about some incidents of violence and other crimes that have hit close to home the past couple of weeks. It could get really depressing. Then I started to prepare a homily on the first reading for this (Saturday) morning’s mass, where I found this passage from Acts 18:25:

Come in Apollos. Let's talk.

A Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, an eloquent speaker, arrived in Ephesus. He was an authority on the scriptures. He had been instructed in the Way of the Lord and, with ardent spirit, spoke and taught accurately about Jesus, although he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue; but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the Way (of God) more accurately.’”

Any guesses as to what Priscilla and Aquila may have wanted to talk to Apollos about when they took him aside? I think there’s a good hint in the first verse: “He knew only the baptism of John.” So, what was John preaching when he baptized people?”

“Repent! The kingdom is at hand. Reform your lives, improve your behavior!” Apollos only knew John’s message of moral improvement, of cleaning up your act, of getting better.

If my faith were based solely on striving for virtue, and rooting out vices and working hard at my salvation, the these murders and other crimes would be completely overwhelming. My efforts at moral improvement would simply crumble under the pressures of those horrors. This is where I suggest Priscilla and Aquila come to our rescue.

Priscilla and Aquila probably took Apollos home and explained to him that unlike the baptism of John, the central message of Jesus’ baptism wasn’t moral improvement but self-abandonment, letting go of yourself, your plans, your self-will, and following Christ to Calvary. We are baptised into Christ's death, so that we can also rise with him. We die with Christ, so that God can take over the center of our lives. This is not step-by-step moral improvement, but a radical giving yourself to Christ.

Jesus has conquered death, and has brought us along with him. This central belief of Christianity can stand up to any evil, even violent robberies and murders.

So, living in this neighborhood it’s a good idea to keep meditating on the cross and on its redeeming power.

Even if this isn’t what Priscilla and Aquila told Apollos, it seems like good Christian theology. Especially if you live on King Boulevard.

ADVENT TUG-OF-WAR

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CONFLICT OF SEASONS

I’ve have a weird week. Coming from someone who teaches high school sophomores that’s probably not a very surprising statement. But the weird feeling has come from another and rather unexpected direction. It all started a month ago with an email.

My editor at Morehouse Publications emailed me to ask if I would consider writing a revised edition of Pilgrim Road: A Benedictine Journey through Lent.  I thought it was a great idea and said yes right away.  I wrote up and submitted a proposal for a second edition, and then received a contract in the mail. Fine. The deadline for the improvements to the Lenten book is early March, 2014. Fine.

Then I set about writing a new introduction to the book and an appendix containing group discussion questions for an appendix. I really started getting into the Lent business. Then the weirdness began on Thanksgiving weekend

ADLENT SEASON?

The Advent wreath appeared in the refectory, then we celebrated Vespers of the First Sunday of Advent, and I wrote a Sunday homily explaining the spiritual challenges of Advent. Then there were the songs on the radio and the decorations in the stores. Everything around me was proclaiming the coming of our Savior at Christmas. “Prepare the way of the Lord.”

Imagine, then, having to sit down in the midst of all this and reflect about Lent. It was really difficult.

The disconnect was made worse in school because I started rehearsing music with the kids for the annual Christmas Program but in my New Testament class we began studying the passion narratives, and the death of Christ. I imagine the kids barely noticed the disconnect, and if they did it didn't much matter to them. But I was squirming inside. To be honest, part of me has been indignant at having my Benedictine liturgical sensibilities so sorely treated: writing about Lent while celebrating Advent, preparing the Christmas Program while teaching about Holy Week.

AHA!

A few moments ago I found some help in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994), in the paragraphs on the liturgical year (#1168 – 1171). They begin, of course, by noting that Easter is the central liturgical feast because it commemorates the central event of our salvation. “The economy of salvation is at work within the framework of time, but since its fulfillment in the Passover of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the culmination of history is anticipated ‘as a foretaste,’ and the kingdom of God enters into our time” (#1168).

Then three paragraphs later I discovered this statement: “In the liturgical year the various aspects of the one Paschal Mystery unfold. This is also the case with the cycle of feasts surrounding the mystery of the incarnation (Annunciation, Christmas, and Epiphany). They commemorate the beginning of our salvation and communicate to us the first fruits of the Paschal mystery (#1171).

So there’s at least some source of consolation: No matter what season of the liturgical year we’re in, we’re celebrating some aspect of the Paschal mystery of Christ’s suffering-death-resurrection. Advent celebrates the preparation, the beginning, the anticipation of our salvation by Jesus that will culminate with Calvary and the empty tomb.  

When I was complaining about my weird week to a friend she suggested an even more basic way of putting this same idea: all of these feasts and seasons are about the same thing anyway -- God’s infinite LOVE for us.

So I’m gradually coming around to seeing the seeming contradictions and conflicts between Lent and Advent in my present life as an invitation to experience the unfathomable richness of the mystery God’s gift of salvation. No single feast or season can come anywhere near to exhausting the mystery, but maybe mixing them up together now and then can help me share in Saint Paul's wonder at God's greatness:

Oh the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! (Rom. 11:33)

ADAM'S FIRST EASTER

THE FORGOTTEN DAY

We’re all so familiar with Good Friday and Easter Sunday that we tend to gloss over what happened on Holy Saturday. The Creed that we profess each Sunday, however, reminds us that after his death on Good Friday and before his resurrection, “He descended into hell” before rising on the third day. In this post I would like to share some ideas and a personal angle concerning this forgotten phrase in the Creed. First, let me offer you the teaching of the Catholic Catechism on the topic (#s 632-637). 

632 The frequent New Testament affirmations that Jesus was "raised from the dead" presuppose that the crucified one sojourned in the realm of the dead prior to his resurrection. This was the first meaning given in the apostolic preaching to Christ's descent into hell: that Jesus, like all men, experienced death and in his soul joined the others in the realm of the dead. But he descended there as Savior, proclaiming the Good News to the spirits imprisoned there.

633 Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, "hell" - Sheol in

Hebrew or Hades in Greek - because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God. Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the Redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into "Abraham's bosom": "It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Savior in Abraham's bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell." Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him.

634 "The gospel was preached even to the dead." The descent into hell brings the Gospel message of salvation to complete fulfillment. This is the last phase of Jesus' messianic mission, a phase which is condensed in time but vast in its real significance: the spread of Christ's redemptive work to all men of all times and all places, for all who are saved have been made sharers in the redemption.

635 Christ went down into the depths of death so that "the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live." Jesus, "the Author of life", by dying destroyed "him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and [delivered] all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage." Henceforth the risen Christ holds "the keys of Death and Hades", so that "at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth."

THE MARVELOUS MEETING

What prompted me to reflect on this topic, sometimes referred to as “The Harrowing of Hell,” was a reading that we read at Vigils this (Holy Saturday) morning. This ancient homily on Holy Saturday is one of my favorite readings of the whole year. Here is an excerpt.

Something strange is happening - there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.

"Rise, let us leave this place!"

He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve, he who is both God and the son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the cross, the weapon that had won him the victory. 

At the sight of him Adam, the first man he had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone: “My Lord be with you all.” Christ answered him: “And with your spirit.” He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying: “Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.” 

I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. Out of love for you and for your descendants I now by my own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead. Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated. For your sake I, your God, became your son; I, the Lord, took the form of a slave; I, whose home is above the heavens, descended to the earth and beneath the earth. For your sake, for the sake of man, I became like a man without help, free among the dead. For the sake of you, who left a garden, I was betrayed in a garden, and I was crucified in a garden. (A fuller excerpt can be found by clicking here.)

I’m always touched by Christ’s encountering Adam in the underworld. Never a word of reproach; the savior

Rise up, work of my hands!

simply “took him by the hand and raised him up, saying: “Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.” For some reason this year I was really touched by Christ’s attitude of forgiveness and blessing. His whole purpose is to show Adam how much God loves him and his children. I felt as if Jesus were talking directly to me this morning when I heard these words: I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead. Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated. I’ve been invited personally by Jesus to rise from the dead and share instead in his new life.

In looking around for information on the harrowing of hell I found a blog post that does a beautiful job, and so I happily refer you to that blog here if you want to pursue the topic.

May the risen Lord fill you with his risen life and with the deeply felt conviction that he died and rose just for you. May you hear his words to Adam addressed personally to you this Easter day: “Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”

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HAPPY EASTER!

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