On the Alleluia Side

Reposted from "Many But One"
http://manybutone.wordpress.com
Here it is Easter Wednesday and I'm still dwelling in the afterglow of the Vigil fire. I'm so grateful to my various colleagues for all of their hard work, especially John Weit, our new musician for jumping into the experience head first. I'm also grateful to the other writers here on this blog, your contributions provided great food for thought to use in my ministry settings and I know that several parishioners read Many But One during Lent after I publicized it in the newsletter.

As for me, I am always touched by the powerful drama and saving truth of Holy Week. For better or for worse, though I suspect largely for the better, my father reflected deeply and profoundly on the sufferings and the triumph of Christ during his own battle with terminal cancer. My cruciform witness comes from a hospital bedside as much as from the hill of Golgotha.

In our interfaith dialogues at Worcester Polytechnic Institute we discussed the troubling violence and suffering that permeates Holy Week. However, I would suggest that these very real trials are precisely what make the gospel so relatable to people in great distress of their own.

The passion and perhaps even the seeming "reboot" of the resurrection make us uncomfortable, because it is uncomfortable! We are brought face to face with death, our mortality and a radical promise of life that contradicts every bit of logic. We are invited into the pattern of the Paschal Mystery and what a joy that is, tears, shouts, joy and all. Alleluia, Christ is Risen!