Transforming in to the people of The Resurrection

Empty Tomb- He Qi

The Good Friday altar is bleak

three crosses, rough with nails,

we are mean to think

of someone in pain, approach

a cross, each step a prayer,

and take a nail to lighten

the burden. I think of you,

John O’Donohue- for Good Friday – Echoes of Memory

We don’t typically have to wait for much nowadays, we can tell when its going to rain in the swipe of a finger, the probability of a sports score in a mater of seconds, the sex of an unborn child in an afternoon. We can choose to exile the pain and suffering of those around us, to hide those we don’t agree of worse embarrass us.

The women on that first Easter morning - who didn’t have the luxury of choice in waiting - rushed to the tomb in garden in hope and reality, with words of Jesus ringing in their ears, along with the mutterings of doubters. But they waited, trusted and believed.

They hadn’t lived through Triduum after Triduum, years of vigils, but rather; the death of a friend, son and brother; 3 days of agony of questions; exiles- friends disappearing. 

And then as they hear the whispers of past, of their Friend our Christ, they see the unimagined the stone moved the tomb empty.  

As I sit with these women some 2000yrs on I remember that I to am able to wait to discover the unimagined, to question, to open my ears and my heart to the words of past beloveds, to let my soul speak to that of the son, friend, brother which dwells in those around me. And with this comes a newness, like the birdsong in that garden with those women,  as I do every morning with the hearts that shape my day.

We were sent here to search for the light of Easter in our hearts and when we find it, we are meant to give it away generously.

The dawn that is rising this Easter morning is a gift to our hearts and we are meant to celebrate it and to carry away from this holy, ancient place the gifts of healing and light and the courage of a new beginning.”

John O’Donohue Easter Sunrise at Corcomroe