Message from Fr. Timothy

Resurrection, Spring, and New Life

  Boris Pasternak ends his poem ‘Holy Week' with this image;

"And when midnight comes

All creatures and all flesh will fall silent

On hearing spring put forth its rumor

That just as soon as there is better weather

Death itself can be overcome

Through the power of the Resurrection"

According to the imagery created by the Church's Liturgical cycle Pascha and spring go hand in hand.  Her poetry and hymns tell of birth, new life and renewal.  The Easter liturgy concludes with a vision of the whole creation exuberant over the Resurrection: "The world rejoices while the heavens are purified by the brilliance of divinity, the earth is wrapped in a festal mantle......Mothers offer you their gifts nestled in their arms. The meadows will soon be in full flower".  Here in the Northern Hemisphere and especially in climate zone 6 of New England the imagery makes lovely sense - if we lived in Argentina we would be greatly challenged.  Easter was late this year and so was spring, it seems to have arrived almost instantly.  Still it came as always; days break early, the Sun is warmer, bulbs thrust green points from the still cold soil, red, white and pink buds burst from hard dark bark.  Spring returns as ever, acknowledging life; it Easters into creation, shining light and blowing warmth. Birdsong surrounds us as spring brushes against us carelessly.

In Easter as in spring, we emerge from the darkness and learn the lessons found in light. We adjust our sight to the brilliance of the Son. In awe we make ourselves vulnerable to God. We welcome the Paschal mystery as it enters lives that are so often humdrum, or depressed, or anxious over many things, or angry at the world and the disrepair. The Paschal mystery that embraces us is not so much seen as it is a way of seeing, not so much an object known as a way of knowing. We have prepared the soil for the rain the dew and the seed. In womb-like darkness, the seed springs to life. In darkness, out of sight, the Paschal mystery takes hold in our flesh and becomes part of our blood and bone. Now we become harbors of divine mystery and are asked to bring God to birth into a world that aches for healing salvation. Easter turns to sacredness and symbol, every experience and human interaction is able to reveal and transform. Mystery breaks through and allows us to reach the heart of the matter. Easter and spring show that life is a gift.  The acceptance of the gift is followed by the anxious awareness that the gift is not guaranteed. All the indignities and disenchantment of hostile invasions, of colossal disaster, of suffering, of loss, of death still await us. And all our devices to make life safe -- investing monies, building up the military, stockpiling oil, food and antibiotics -- are finally not as reliable as we thought. When all has collapsed, mystery can enter. St. Peter Chrysologus in the fifth century said: "God saw the world falling to ruin because of fear and immediately acted to call it back with love. God invaded it by grace, preserved it by love and embraced it with compassion."   The message of spring and the mystery of Pascha are about that preserving embrace.  "Christ is Risen"  let us embrace each other anew and respond as always "Indeed He is Risen".

Father Timothy

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