Reflections

A good Lent is mentally and spiritually exhausting. It leaves your heart raw. Like a good fight with a loved one, it strips away old resentments and shines light on the dark places in our souls. We go into the desert to confront our pain, our loneliness, our demons: ourselves.

We look at ourselves honestly, and we let Christ guide us into the desert, for he is the Way. We look at ourselves honestly, and we find the truth painful. Yet there too, we encounter Christ, for he is the Truth. We bring ourselves, sinful and sorrowful, to the foot of the Cross. We lift our hearts up to him and offer him the one thing we have that is truly our own.

In that, we die with him. We rest in him. We are reborn and rise with him to new life, for he is Life. The Resurrection is real. It is not something from the past. It is here now. It happens each day in our hearts. Every time we turn to him, every time we choose to bring love into the world, every time we choose the good of another over ourselves, we rise to new life in him.

Easter is not a memorial of something long ago. It is a reality to be experienced now: every day, every minute, here and now. Listen to St. Teresa of Avila:

Christ has no body but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which he looks

Compassion on this world,

Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,

Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,

Yours are the eyes, you are his body.

Christ has no body now but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which he looks

Compassion on this world.

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

Christ is risen: not long ago, but now. Why do you search for the Living One among the dead? He is not here. Christ has no body now on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world. Not Christ was risen; Christ is risen. He is risen, indeed.

Here and now.

Respectfully Yours,

Cricket