Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Do Your Feel the Pull of Easter?




Dear Friends,
                                Our Sisters join me in wishing you delight and insight as we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus from now until Pentecost. May you find the Risen One around every corner!

                                Here is a story, the origin of which I don’t know. I used it one Easter and launched into my own thoughts after telling it. On the way out after Mass, one appreciative parishioner said I could have stopped at the end of the story. I tell it here, so you can share it with others.

                                A German seminary professor of theology was fond of vacationing on the moors of England. On one such trip, he walked along a path with the mist still thick. The professor came upon a small group of cherry- cheeked  boys and girls, gazing up into the mist. One child was working the string of a kite.

                                “You can’t see it,” the professor said, announcing the obvious.
                                “How do you know it’s there?”

                                With the exasperation that children have for clueless adults,
                                 a little voice piped:

                                “We know because we feel the pull of it.”

                                Back in Germany, refreshed by his holiday, the professor took up the task of shaping the theological thought of the seminarians in his class. Seminarians, by their nature, love to challenge their teachers. His class excelled in this way.

                                On one particular day, the topic was  how to convey  the deep, abiding truths of Christianity in  homilies for the great feasts.

                                “Take Easter,” one earnest student began.
                                “What do we say? How do we make people know it’s real?”

                                Remembering the children with the kite on the moors, the professor replied:
                                “We know because we feel the pull of it.”

Do you feel the pull of Easter?

~Sister Joan Sobala