Thursday, April 1, 2021

Feeling the Pull of Easter


Dear Friends,

There’s a story about Easter I have been carrying in my heart for years. I used it only once in a blog. That was 2015, so I’m due to tell it again, so you can hear it and experience it’s meaning.

A German seminary professor of theology was fond of vacationing on the moors of England. On one such trip, he walked along a path still thick with morning mist. The professor came upon a group of cherry-cheeked boys and girls, gazing upward. 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 up: “We know because we feel the pull of it.”

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

On one particular day, the topic under discussion 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 very simply: “We know because we feel the pull of it.”

On this “day which has no sunset,” as the 12th century abbot Guerric of Igny, describes it, do you feel the pull of Easter?

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Friday, March 26, 2021

Lingering in Faith this Holy Week


Dear Friends, 

All year long, we read about/study/drink in Jesus’ public life. 

Lent prepares us for the bleakness, the darkness of the passion, 

and yes, beyond that, a new day, glowing in the heart of Christ. 

 

We believe that the promise of life is stronger than death, 

but we linger in faith in the events of Holy Week. 

 

The day comes in Jesus’ public ministry that he sets his face toward Jerusalem, his destiny. 

He encounters believers and skeptics along the way. 

His disciples jockey for power. 

 

He finally enters Jerusalem, 

applauded and honored. 

 

The next day, Jesus spares the barren fig tree,  

but he himself will not be spared. 

 

Later in the week, on the night before he dies, 

Jesus eats the Passover meal with his disciples. 

He knows how God fed the Israelites as they fled from bondage to freedom.  

Jesus’ disciples, too, will pass with Him from bondage to freedom. 

 

In His passion, in the agony in the garden, Jesus yields control of His life 

Disciples and friends will not/cannot watch with him. 

He is accused, mistreated, rejected, jeered at. 

 

Jesus is utterly vulnerable and on the way of the cross, reveals his physical weakness 

tenderness for others. 

 
Falling, falling, falling, He lean on another. 

 

He is lifted high,  

with no disciples at his side 

and he dies. 

 

Though it is day, night descends. Darkness covers the earth. 

He dies. 

 

We shall never lose Christ. 

If we do not follow Him, He will follow us… 

Not too closely lest he take away our freedom… 

But near enough to wash our feet when we are ready… 

Close enough to give us bread and wine in our weariness.” (John Bell) 

 

May the God who holds Jesus close on the cross and in the grav 

hold us close as we strive to fathom and welcome the depth of Jesus’ gift to us all: 

Death, but not forever. 

Darkness, but not forever. 

Light and life with Christ, our Brother and Lord, forever. 

 

May the God of mercy,  

who is well acquainted with grief, bless us with faith that our God lives. 

And with God, we shall live. 

 

~Sister Joan Sobala