Dear All,
We are coming to the end of Eastertide – we can look back to Easter & wonder whether it has made a difference in our lives. I don’t think it is often a big bang moment for many of us but I like the expression ‘Eastering’ – it implies that this is a process that can happen within us continually – day after day – year after year – & not just in & around Easter. I have looked for some reflections that say or imply something along these lines & found a couple. I hope they speak in some way to you.
Next weekend we will celebrate the great feast of the Spirit & after that we go back into what we call in the Church ‘Ordinary time’ after all the weeks of Lent & Eastertide. We have included here ‘Pentecost is Coming’ in anticipation – more of the Spirit next week!
Our blessing this week is ‘My Peace’ from Sacred Dance. Let us thank God for the blessing of this last week & may you & those dear to you receive many blessings in the coming week.
With our love & prayer
For those who join us on Sunday on zoom for Gospel reflection & Evening Prayer: there won’t be a zoom on Pentecost Sunday.
Eastering is a Slow Process.
The earth’s greening after a long winter reminds me of our spiritual ‘eastering’, the inner transformation & rebirthing that comes after we’ve had a long winter spell of the spirit. No amount of hurry, or push, or desire can make the green come any sooner. I think of people I know who are longing for an inner greening, & are yet in the throes of a spiritual winter. Each one needs an ‘eastering’, a bright greening, & oh, how they long for it to come soon.
But it may be a painfully slow, a tiny bit of life gradually weaving through the pain & questions. Easter isn’t always a quick step out of the tomb. Sometimes rising from the dead takes a long, slowly- greening time. It cannot be hurried. If you are one of the fortunate ones whose soul has sung with happy alleluias this Easter, may you turn often to those who are still awaiting their greening & walk hopefully with them.
Joyce Rupp
“Let him easter in us….” That is one of the last lines (line 277) in the poem “The Wreck of the Deutschland” by Gerald Manley Hopkins (July 28, 1844 – June 8, 1889), an English Jesuit priest and poet. Hopkins is writing about a steamship, The Deutschland, that ran aground about twenty-five miles off the English coast. His poem is dedicated to five Franciscans nuns who were fleeing persecution in Germany and died in that shipwreck.
Towards the end of the poem Hopkins speaks of his hope that Christ will enter our lives. “Let him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us.” Hopkins understands and uses Easter as a verb rather than a noun. It is a reminder that Easter is something that happens to us. Easter is about action, about living, about transformation. Christ enters and easters in us. He shares his risen life with us. As St Paul says,
‘It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me’. (Gal. 2:19-20)
Christ eastering within us means we have a new centre and core from which we live. We now live Christ’s life. Easter is more than a day, an event, a remembrance. It is a way of life.
So what would it mean for your life if you knew Easter as a verb rather than a noun? How will your life be different with Christ eastering in you?
Trust in the Slow Work of God.
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way
to something unknown, something new.
Yet it is the law of all progress, that it is made by passing through some stages of instability, and that may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually. Let them grow.
Let them shape themselves without undue haste.
Do not try to force them on
as though you could be today what time-that is to say, grace – and circumstances
acting on your own good, will make you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new Spirit gradually forming in you will be.
Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.
Above all, trust in the slow work of God, our loving vine-dresser.
Teilhard de Chardin
Pentecost is coming.
It will be an end and a beginning.
It will bewilder and confuse.
Though some will fight it,
the aching world calls it forth with urgency.
Come, Spirit, come.
The Spirit who moves like “a rush of violent wind…”
Who appears like fire…
Who is the breath of God…
She comes to us unconcerned with order,
wild with freedom,
turning over anything and everything that stands in her way.
Let her come and fill our mouths with words we didn’t know we could speak.
Let her come and help us hear in languages we once could not understand.
She is being poured out.
The people will prophesy.
The heavens will draw near.
The chorus of voices-past will join in
and proclaim the truth of God.
Justice will come.
Do not be like the ones who sneer and ask, “are they drunk?”
Do not be surprised by what’s happening as if
the scriptures and history and the prophets have not foretold…
You’ve heard it said –
The sun will burn out and the moon turn to blood
before the day of Justice arrives.
Instead, open your hearts
and pray that God’s grace
may carry you into the Kingdom.
Let courage rise up.
Let passion enflame.
Let love transform.
Let weeping fill the land.
There will be no peace until there is justice.
No healing until wrongs are made right.
Come, Spirit, come.
And turn the world upside-down.