Posts from the ‘Easter’ Category
Rest Silently in Resurrection
Most surely, in the thin places, the Irish teach us to sense another reality
Those who do not know there is another life after this one, or who cannot bring themselves to live in time as if they were meant to spend their eternity in God, resist the fruitful silence of their own being by continual noise. Even when their own tongues are still, their minds chatter without end and without meaning, or they plunge themselves into the protective noise of machines, traffic or radios. When their own noise is momentarily exhausted, they rest in the noise of other people.
– Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island
Resurrection and Touching the Mystery of Life
Let us shine the light on what we fear – and find Resurrection where we least expect it
There is a certain fear of death that comes from not having lived yet. I had to face it myself when I had cancer a few years ago. I don’t think I was afraid of death at that time, but I also knew I had already lived. Once you know you have touched upon this mystery of life, you are not afraid of death. There is an existential terror about losing what you’ve never found. Something in me says, “I haven’t done ‘it’ yet.” I haven’t experienced the stream of life yet. I haven’t touched the real, the good, the true, and the beautiful—which is, of course, what we were created for.
– Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs
What Is Resurrection Living?
Christian spirituality means eating together, sharing together, drinking together, talking with each other, receiving each other, experiencing God’s presence through each other, and in doing so, proclaiming the gospel as God’s alternative vision for everyone.
– Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza
Table fellowship – an important piece of Resurrection Living
Enter Into a New Reality – Enter Into Resurrection
You never change things by fighting existing reality. To change something, build a new reality that makes the existing reality obsolete.
– R. Buckminster Fuller
The reality of this starfish is not what it once was; nor can it go back to it.
Resurrection – The Great Turning
Shall I be part of the great turning, or will I simply sit it out on the porch?
Cosmic change is not cosmetic change. It is radical, meaning ‘to the root,’ and it will mean the upheaval of our cherished customs and the disposal of stories that have provided the basic framework for our lives. We must not underestimate the enormity of what is being asked of us, even as we celebrate with joy the new and salvific. In its initial moments resurrection is indistinguishable from death. At first we are unable to see the great turning that has taken place. All that has been comfortable, all that has held us in place is gone, and there is nothing recognizable to stand on. Everything on which we have planted our feet is swept away.
– Judy Cannato
Easter – The Promise of Resurrection
Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.
– Martin Luther
Resurrection, written on the leaves of the hydrangea
God’s Love
Artist’s rendition of the Descent of the Holy Spirit – found in Sopra Minerva,a church in Rome
Today, on the Feast of Pentecost which signals the end of the Easter Season, I offer a poem offered among the Easter resources from Education for Justice. It was written by Richard Rolle in the14th Century. I appreciate Scott Cairns information that allowed me to correct the source material.
God’s Love
O Holy Spirit, Who breatheswhere You will, breathe into meand draw me to Yourself.Invest the nature You have shaped,with gifts so flowing with honey that,from intense joy in Your sweetnessthis clay might turn from lesser things,that it may accept (as You give them)spiritual gifts, and through pleasingjubilation, it may melt, entirely,in holy love, reaching finally outto touch the Uncreated Light.
Source: Love’s Immensity: Mystics on the Endless Life, by ScottCairns. Brewster, MA:Paraclete Press, 2007. p. 105This is not an original poem written by me. It is published in my collection of translations and adaptations from the writings of Christian mystics. This is not the first time that folks have failed to do their homework in attributing these and other of those poems; I’m hoping, however, that it might be the last. The text from which I constructed the poem was written in the 14th Century by Richard Rolle. My adaptation also employs lineation which the above text does not resemble. Just saying.
