The Best April Fools

For every April Fools' Day joke played successfully this day someone must be full of confusion or annoyance or some similar sentiment.  Imagine then the apostles, who had just undergone the most brutally cruel crashing of their expectations in the death of their Lord only to have Him rise again three days later as if to say, "April Fools.  You thought I was dead and this was the end of all things, but look, now I am alive."

Of course He never said that.  First of all, they had not yet invented this delightful celebration called April Fools Day.  Even if they had, Christ's resurrection would not have fallen on that day.

Still, there is a perennial truth in this year's coinciding of celebrations as much as there was in that of Valentine's Day and Ash Wednesday.  It is a truth deeper than we might dare admit.  Sometimes we can grow so comfortable with the darkness and pain and our own grieving that we do not want to admit the light.  It is uncomfortable, just like the prank of April Fools, to find ourselves faced suddenly with the overturning of our expectations.  How can we be demanded suddenly to accept as necessary the most horrific of circumstances?  Yet is that not what the resurrection demands?  For how could there be resurrection without first the crucifixion?

Christ appears like a child, eager in His glory to welcome us into the Kingdom of Heaven, a kingdom that has dawned through the trampling of death by death.  That child-like love, however, runs up against grieving hearts who had just undergone the most tragic experience of their lives.  How could they be prepared to go from pain to joy?

We too are called to be children.  We are called to let loose our own expectations and rejoice with the reappearance of Him who was dead.

He is alive!

Do those words not strike the mind with more comprehension than to say that He was dead?  For death we all understand.  It comes for all those we love and we know it will come one day for us.  It is, according to folk wisdom, one of the only sure things in life other than taxes.

Yet resurrection?  Of that we have no experience.  How then can we comprehend something so amazing, so heartbreakingly beautiful, so true?

We cannot.

Still, by the power of Christ within us, perhaps we may catch some glimmer of what this awesome mystery portends.  Perhaps He send the Holy Spirit to enlighten our earth-trod minds, to awaken us from the weary monotony of our self-wrought circles of madness, and to breathe in the fresh air of a new joy, a new hope, a new life that might just as well be the April Fools joke.  For to embrace such a mystery seems folly to the world, and even to our mortal minds.

Let us then embrace the folly of this joke that is no mere joke, although it makes the heavens ring with the laughter of joy.  On this day, let us become fools for Him!

Christ is risen from the dead,
trampling down death by death,
and on those in the tombs
lavishing life!

XIV. Jesus is Laid in the Sepulchre

V. We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee.
R. Because by Thy holy Cross, Thou hast redeemed the world.

Somehow death always feels like the end.  Even though we say that we believe in the resurrection of the dead, it is hard not to face a parting as if it were forever.

Think of how the apostles must have felt to see the body of Jesus laid in the tomb.  The finality of it must have struck their hearts with numb terror.  Everything they had given up to follow Him must have seemed in vain.  They had followed Him, believing that He was the Messiah, the Christ, the One who would set them free.  Instead, He had died the most horrible death of a criminal and now His body lay in the coldness of a sepulcher intended for another.

Our Lady must have sustained them by her presence, by her faith in God, but still what consolation could she give them?  How do you ever speak words of comfort to one who has suffered loss?

When one is in the darkness of grief, no light seems possible.  In the face of death, how can one believe in resurrection?

Yet it is precisely through that death and darkness that God crashes with His tremendous power, destroying all our expectations of gloom and doom.  What of the sealed tombs in our own lives?  Do we close off our hearts at the loss and turn our back on all that was good when it turns out wrong?  Or do we linger, waiting for the moment when the angel will roll back the stone?

Oh, my buried Jesus, I kiss the stone that encloses Thee. But Thou didst rise again the third day. I beseech Thee, by Thy resurrection, make me rise glorious with Thee at the last day, to be always united with Thee in heaven, to praise Thee and love Thee forever. I love Thee, and I repent of ever having offended Thee. Never permit me to offend Thee again. Grant that I may love Thee always; and then do with me what Thou wilt. (From the Stations of the Cross according to Saint Alphonsus Liguori.)

~

As we descend with our Lord into the darkness with the beginning of the Triduum tomorrow, I pray that each of you will deeply encounter the Paschal Mystery.

Please share any more particular prayer intentions with me if you wish.

Blessings to you this Holy Week!

IV. Jesus Meets His Mother

V. We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee.

R. Because by Thy holy Cross, Thou hast redeemed the world.

How could our Lady bear to see her Son suffer so dreadfully?  Every mother's heart aches for her children and she longs to be able to take those pains herself so that sometimes she offers a greater sacrifice by seeing others suffer than by suffering herself.  Mothers hate to feel powerless, for they must reach out to serve, to love, to lift up: it is their very nature.

Yet Mary, the Mother of God, did not try to take away her Son's suffering as she followed Him on the way to the cross.  Her willingness to suffer with Him by seeing Him suffer united her loving heart with His.

When finally she broke through the crowd to meet Him face to face, the tears must have streamed down her wordless face that saw His face so disfigured.  She must have longed to take Him into her arms to comfort Him as she had when He had been a little child, but she could not, for that would have renewed His pains a thousand-fold.

Perhaps she reached out to touch Him gently, her fingertips softly caressing His cheek in the only place still unhurt.  In that touch, He who had felt power flow out of Him so many times to heal must also have felt power flow into Him: the power of His mother's love, a constant love that embraced the will of the Father in all its unpleasant manifestations.  So too in the meeting of their gaze must love have flowed.  In that moment, the God of the universe drew strength from His dear creation.

In our sufferings, may we look to our Blessed Mother, knowing that she longs to take away our pain and grief, but knowing also that she bears to see us suffer out of love.  She knows that what our Lord allows to happen to us out of His most abundant Providence will transform us, transfiguring the muck of our lives into a brilliant pearl to offer Him.

My most loving Jesus, by the sorrow Thou didst experience in this meeting, grant me the grace of a truly devoted love for Thy most holy Mother. And thou, my Queen, who wast overwhelmed with sorrow, obtain for me by thy intercession a continual and tender remembrance of the Passion of thy Son. I love Thee, Jesus my love; I repent of ever having offended Thee. Never permit me to offend Thee again. Grant that I may love Thee always; and then do with me what Thou wilt. (From the Stations of the Cross according to Saint Alphonsus Liguori.)