The Resurrection of Jesus is a fact in itself, but for the
disciples the experiences of the Resurrection are different and varied. Each of
them experienced it in his or her own way and at their own pace. And the
running of Peter and John to the empty tomb is very symbolic of that. John ran
faster than Peter and got there ahead of him but each of them came to the experience
of Jesus in their own time and at their own pace.
Resurrection can be a very difficult reality to comprehend
or to make a connection with. I find myself when I’m going through Holy Week
that I have a very strong connection with Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the
early part of Holy Saturday – these touch something very deep inside the heart.
Resurrection is a very different thing because we haven’t yet experienced it
ourselves.
But what I do believe is important is the intensity of
desire that is in our hearts to have the experience of Jesus risen from the
dead and that we go on and persist in our intensity.
For me, the best parable or experience of it in my own life
comes from when my sister Maura died suddenly 18 years ago at the age of 46.
Maura and I were very, very close; we were always together and there was a very
strong physical connection between us as well as emotional. So, when she died I
felt intensely lonely – we all did – and I used to say to God in prayer how
much I missed her and how intense was my desire to touch her again, to feel the
touch of her presence in my life. A prayer that went on and on relentlessly for
maybe a year or two, a prayer filled with sincerity, desire and sorrow.
Then I had two dreams, one of which I have spoken and
written of before. The second one is in my mind today. In the dream, I went to
the cemetery to visit her grave and as I was going through the gates the
cemetery was transformed into a church where Maura was sitting alone in the
back seat.
She held out her hand to me and said, “will we dance?” And I
said, “we can’t dance here!” And she replied, “we can!” Throughout our lives
from the time we were teenagers we loved to jive and became very good at
it. So, she took me by the hand and led
me to an open space at the top of the church. There was no music but there was
light, this beautiful light shining down, not a physical electric light but it
was like the light of heaven shining down upon the two of us. And there we
danced bathed in the light; we danced to, what I call, silent music. Silent but
joyful!
When I woke from that dream what struck me was – that I
would go to the cemetery looking for my sister and it’s like what the Lord says
in the gospel of the resurrection, “why search among the dead for someone who
is alive?” Maura was telling me, God was telling me through her that even
though she had died and was gone from me that she was in fact alive; telling me
that that life is the life of Jesus, a life that is contained within the
embrace of the sanctuary of the church where Jesus is present and alive in the
Eucharist.
The promise of that dream is also that I myself one day,
that all of us will enter into the sacred space of Jesus in the Eucharist in
its most perfect sense, that we will enter into the light of that experience
and we will dance in whatever way we are able to dance.
One of the lovely
things about the spiritual life is that there is song and there is dance in it
but you don’t have to be a singer or a dancer to engage in it. Because every
move we make in the presence of the Lord and every song we sing is beautiful to
Him, for He loves the voice that is in you, the voice that He given to you – it
is music to His ears. The very sight of you, the way you move is a joy to Him.
So, if we are to live Easter today it is to live it with joy
and hope; to live it in the embrace of the light that shines upon us,
especially from the Eucharist, the light of heaven. And even if grief is
present and intense we will know that we are bathed in that light, that we are
held in an embrace that is tender and infinitely loving, a light that will lead
us all to the fulfilment and the perfection of life that we desire.
Eammon you bring joy to my heart
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