Tuesday, April 01, 2008

An Easter Message from CANA, 2008

http://www.canaconvocation.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=164&Itemid=50

[CANA Convocation] 1 Apr 2008--"But sometimes it doesn’t seem that way!" We have all had those times in our lives when it seemed as if our world was coming to an end. I am not referring to the eschaton when all that we know of this world will come to an end but rather those moments of personal crisis when there seems to be no way forward. It can happen when we confront the spectre of terminal illness for ourselves or for someone we love; it can be prompted by the end of a friendship or breakup of a family or the loss of a job; it can be provoked through the devastation caused by an encounter with one kind of natural disaster or another. What then? How do we cope, how do we find the strength to continue? This is when the events of that first Holy Week become a personal experience and not merely a religious memory

For those first disciples it seemed as if their world had come to an end in the days leading up to that first Easter Sunday. The darkness of despair and the betrayal by the civil and religious authorities had extinguished their dreams. They had pinned their hopes on that wandering Rabbi who had emerged out of the wilderness. He had encouraged them to look forward to a new and brighter world where God’s reign would be made visible for all to see. But now it seemed to be all over. To add insult to injury when they buried the broken body of their beloved friend they did so in a borrowed tomb and blocked entrance with a rock. They could not even honor him in his death.

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