Preferring Nothing to Christ

During Eastertide I always try to imagine myself into the world of the Early Church with all its enthusiasm and vigour. It doesn’t take long before I meet stories that involve some form of dispute:

It is obvious to everybody in Jerusalem that a MIRACLE has been worked through them in public, and we cannot deny it.

In these verses we are confronted with the reality that the disciples were very ordinary men, not part of the establishment and without any pedigree or lineage of learning. In this moment, the healed man, is standing beside Peter and John as a living testimony of their power. No theological debate or political pressure could change what people had seen with their own eyes. He was healed. And that healing didn’t just restore a body, it disrupted an entire thought world.

In our daily lives we are unlikely to encounter the miraculous as we find it in these stories. The power and work of God comes to us in altogether more subtle ways. These stories challenge me to open to the small ways in which God can make a change in my life. It’s easy for things to go unnoticed.

How can you be more open this Eastertide to God’s power to change and heal?

(Acts 4:13-21, Saturday, Easter Octave)

LOVE

John 15:9-17 

No one has greater love than this,
to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
You are my friends
if you do what I command you.

Few of us will be called upon to lay down our lives for our friends. Though we probably all hope that if a big sacrifice of some sort is asked of us we will have the courage to respond.

During the pandemic and now in the ongoing areas of conflict in our world, we witness the love that is prepared to put others first. Some people are capable of showing incredible bravery and risk their lives in order to save others. Every great act and every small act shows us a new dimension of love.

At the heart of our Christian story we have not a philosophy or a set of principles, but a human being who embodied selfless service and self-emptying love. Christ is our pattern for every part of our lives. Often on the feast of a martyr we sing ‘The Martyrs Living Now with Christ’, a hymn written by Stanbrook Abbey. This verse always stands out for me:

No one has ever measured love
Or weighed it in their hand,
But God who knows the inmost heart
Gives them the promised land.

It’s God who knows the depth of our love and our willingness to give. It’s God who sees the bigger picture of our lives and how we try to image Christ.

Let us always remember the people in our lives who quietly and unobstrusively have shown us this self-emptying love.

Can you name these people?

(John 15:12-17, Friday, Fifth Week of Eastertide)

When we pick up and read any of the four Gospels we are being drawn into the world of the Kingdom of God. There’s an inbuilt dynamic of something which is here already, but not yet fulfilled. In Jesus we see what is means for a human being to fully embody the values of the Kingdom. Every word Jesus speaks, every story he tells, every personal encounter he makes and every stand he takes tells us something about the Kingdom.

When Luke tells the story of the Early Church in the Acts of the Apostles we are once again invited into the world of Kingdom.

They put fresh heart into the disciples, encouraging them to persevere in the faith. ‘We all have to experience many hardships’, they said ‘before we enter the KINGDOM of God’.

As we read through its pages we learn that the Kingdom is not some distant utopia that we stumble into by chance. It is a promise. One that comes with a journey marked by trials, choices, and perseverance. These verses reminds us that when hardships come they are not a detour from God’s Kingdom but often part of the very road that leads to it. These words are not a warning but a shared truth and a unifying call.

The Kingdom then isn’t just something we’re waiting to enter at the end of life, it breaks into our present reality every time we choose love over fear, hope over despair, faith over doubt. It’s our hope that every hardship we endure with grace shapes us more and more into people who reflect the values of that Kingdom.

Who are the people whose words can give you a ‘fresh heart’?
Who are the people in your own life who model the Kingdom for you?

(Act 14:19-28, Tuesday, Eastertide, Week 5)

JOY

John 15:9-11

‘If you keep my commandments
you will remain in my love,
just as I have kept my
Father’s commandments
and remain in his love.
I have told you this
so that my own joy may be in you
and your joy be complete.’

During Eastertide we hear a good deal of John’s Gospel. The themes of keeping Christ’s commandments and remaining in his love weave in and out of each other. In today’s text the element of ‘joy’ is added.

I associate pure joy with small children and this in turn reminds me of this passage from the Tales of the Hasidim:

Said the maggid to Rabbi Zusya, his disciple: “I cannot teach you the principles of service. But a little child and a thief can show you what they are:

From the child you can learn three things:

— He is merry for no particular reason;
— Never for a moment he is idle;
— When he needs something, he demands it vigorously.

Being merry for no particular reason is one of the special gifts of childhood. The joy of one young child spreads so easily to others and to adults too. I remember as a child feeling that I might burst with joy and excitement. When you reach adulthood that joy takes on a different shape. It isn’t nearly as frequent and there might be some foreboding mixed in too. The idea Jesus might find his joy in us is something that I don’t spend nearly enough time thinking about. That Jesus wants our ‘joy to be complete’ speaks to me of the depths of the Paschal mystery: every joy and every sorrow that we experience unites us ever closer to Christ.

How can you live in Christ’s joy today?

Image: Senjuti Kundu, Unsplash

You can read the full extract from The Tales of the Hasidim here: https://www.jhom.com/topics/thieves/hasidic.htm

INHERITANCE

Living in a monastic community for the past thirty years I am very conscious of my monastic inheritance. This is very obviously visible in the material culture of the monastery, in its wall hangings, icons and vestments. The design of our oratory too speaks of our monastic and ecclesiological inheritance. Less obvious, but every bit as important, is the inheritance that is preserved in our monastic customs and the way in which we order our daily lives. It is a rich inheritance.

In 1 Peter we are reminded that through our new birth in Christ we are assured of our inheritance. This is not a tangible thing that we can pack and store, but the promise of eternal life. The inevitable suffering and trials of this life won’t alter or diminish our inheritance in any way. The challenge of this text is for us to live in such a way that we embody this promise.

Eastertide invites us to take time to contemplate our true identity in Christ and to give thanks for all that we have inherited.

How can you celebrate your inheritance this Eastertide?

(1 Peter 1:3-4, Second Sunday of Easter, A)

HEARTS

When Jesus speaks to the disciples and tells them that their ‘ hearts will be full of joy’, I wonder how they understood it. John sets this lengthy discourse around the table of their last meal together. They have already shared together the ‘bread of affliction’ and Jesus now asks them to imagine a time when their hearts will be full of joy. I imagine the disciples in a haze that night.

Often when people warn us that something it going to be really hard it can be difficult for us hear them. I have certainly imagined certain situations to be much worse than they actually were. It’s a lot more subtle when people talk to us about our hearts being filled with joy. Real joy is something very personal. Though I have chosen a picture today of a girl jumping, my own experience of joy is much quieter. It has something to do with integration, with all the parts of my life fitting together. It’s not the absence of suffering. It’s more a feeling that joy and suffering can stand side by side.

If Christ is our pattern for life, love and glory, then joy and sorrow will always be woven through this.

How do you hear Christ’s promise?

( John 16:2-23, Friday, Sixth Week of Eastertide)

GLORY

The opening of John’s Gospel weaves together in poetic prose the major theological themes that we will encounter in its pages: life, light, love and glory. It’s hard to explore one without exploring all three. Glory is perhaps the most difficult to quantify and understand.

For the Hebrew mind the word glory (kavod) has a range of meanings which include ‘importance’, ‘honour’ and ‘weight’. Related to kavod is another Hebrew word ‘shekinah’ which is a way of talking about the divine presence. Kavod and shekinah then are both ways of talking about the felt presence of a loving, saving and guiding God.

For the writer of John’s Gospel, God’s glory is seen very specifically when the Word becomes flesh. Every thought, word and action of Christ is a manifestation of God’s glory. This is why in John’s Gospel the moment of crucifixion is seen as a moment of triumph and glory.

In baptism we are sealed with Chrism and caught up in God’s glory too. What Christ prays to the Father in these words ‘so that they may always see the glory you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. ‘ can be our prayer too. Eastertide gives us the opportunity to stay with these words.

How is God calling you to manifest his glory?

(John 17:20-26, Thursday, Eastertide, Week 7)

FILLED

When our parents and godparents presented us for Baptism they did so in the name of the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit. As the water was poured over of heads and the chrism anointed our foreheads the Holy Spirit made a home in us. Nothing than change that.

In Ch 4 of Acts we are told that Peter and John are ‘filled with the Holy Spirit’. This filling was not merely an emotional experience, it empowered them to proclaim the word of God boldly. Peter and John allowed the Spirit to guide them completely. When they spoke, it was in the Spirit that they spoke. When they healed it was in the Spirit that they healed.

In our own lives, this verse challenges us to ask if we are open to being filled and used by the Spirit. As a child I remember singing:

Spirit of the Living God,
Fall afresh on me,
Spirit of the Living God,
Fall afresh on me.
Break me, melt me, mold me, fill me.
Spirit of the Living God,
Fall afresh on me.

I had very little idea of what this would mean in my life. Now, more than forty five years later, I hope I remain as open and trusting as my young self.

Where in your life do you most need the power of the Holy Spirit?

(Acts 7:51-8:1, Sunday, Eastertide, Week 3)

Acts 2:14, 22-33 
1 Peter 1:17-21
Luke 24:13-35

Did not our hearts burn within us as he talked to us on the road and explained the scriptures to us?

This is the second time that we hear the Emmaus story in the season of Eastertide. We heard it first on Wednesday in the Easter Octave. There is so much to ponder in this text that I sometimes wish that we could hear it several days in a row.

So many of the Gospel stories operate on several levels. The stories have their place in the overall structure of the Gospel and then when used in the liturgy another layer of meaning is added. When both or one of these layers of meaning touch our own story, a new level of meaning is opened up. I see this dynamic most clearly with the Emmaus story.

We’ve become accustomed to the journey metaphor being used in many areas of our lives. There is an implicit understanding that certain sorts of situations require a mental and physical journey. We have learnt the wisdom of the process of the journey being as important as arriving at the destination. The Emmaus story offers us an outer and an inner journey. When we hear the text we are invited to make both journeys too.

Denis McBride has deepened my understanding of the dynamic at work here. He sees many strands in the journey:

from without to within,
from confusion to understanding,
from death to life,
from hopelessness to hope,
from blindness to recognition,
from absence to presence,
from Jerusalem to Jerusalem,
from separation to community.

Read through the Gospel story. Where do you find yourself on this journey?

EMMAUS

I don’t think I’ll ever tire of hearing the Emmaus story. I almost know the text by heart. I’m struck today as I sit to write this reflection just how healing a long walk with a friend can be. There is something about the rhythm of walking and being alongside another person that helps knots to unravel and allows a new perspective to open up.

As the disciples walk towards Emmaus, I imagine that they are experiencing a knot of grief and confusion as they try to hold together the events of the Upper Room, Gethsemane and Calvary. Scholars have speculated as to where Emmaus might be. In a sense it doesn’t really matter. The disciples set out on a physical journey and find through an encounter with a stranger that they have made a life-changing inner journey.

As the weeks of Eastertide unfold, we too are invited to be open to those moments when someone comes and walks alongside us. We are invited to be attentive to the times when by chance we are invited to share a meal with others. There will be times when our hearts too will burn.

How can you be open to encountering the risen Christ this Eastertide?

(Luke 24:13-35, Easter Wednesday)