A Blessed Sunrise

Hello, as spring begins to rise up again here in Boston. I’ll share a longer update soon.

Here is a reflection I’ve shared for this weekend. My best wishes for a blessed time celebrating the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection. May we each experience the rising of the Son.

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We Know That the Son Will Rise

I've been living this past year in a basement, underground. I'm happy and grateful to be here, and it's a great place for me to be right now. But getting the kinks in the heat worked out in a basement doesn't make the first winter here easy. One morning I woke up at 50 degrees. The heat wasn't working. Somewhere in the whole system, a vent was blocked. Later in the day, as I looked out the crevice of a window with a hat on my head and a coat on my back, about to start my online work, peering into the darkness of the end of a day where the sun sets at 4:30, it was hard to see much of the positive. But I knew. I knew inside, that, somehow, someway, new and good things were sprouting. Even though it was a dark and lonely time, something really good was happening, even if I couldn't see it. I knew that winter was only for a time, for a season, and that at its time, the days would become longer and brighter and warmer. The spring would come someday. 

How do I know that? This is isn't my first rodeo. This isn't my first winter. And this isn't my first time living through darkness and tough times. I've been through this before. 

Last year on Good Friday, I was recovering from Covid in the village Chontal in Ecuador, while a wave was passing through the village. I got to lead the Holy Thursday celebration and wash the feet of the people in the pueblo. On Good Friday, just after we finished a short Stations of the Cross, the rains came down and power went out in the pueblo. That means no power or internet or phone - nothing. At night, the pueblo sat in pitch darkness. I remember sitting in my room on the edge of my bed in absolute darkness. I tried looking out my window, where some glimmer of light always shown, and I opened my eyes as wide as possible. With my eyes practically bulging out of my head, and my pupils dilated like pancakes, I still couldn't see even the faintest glimmer or a speck of light. 

But I was calm. I just took it all in - and waited. Because I knew the sun would rise the next day. This wasn't my first night - I'd been around for 50 years, and every day I know that the sun sets and then rises again. It had happened 18,000 times before - it's obvious. So, I slept pretty well. Of course, the sun rose the next day, and after the Mass on Easter Sunday, all the power and light came back again. 

There's a reason why we renew and relive the story of Jesus' passion and death and resurrection. We renew it each year, like the seasons change. We renew it each week, and even each day. Why? Because that's the big, centerpiece mystery of all of life. Going from suffering to joy, from nothing to something, from struggle to enjoyment. Going from darkness to light. And here's the thing: when we've experienced it over and over and over, then… when the darkness comes in life… 

We have peace. 

Because all that remembering and re-living and re-experiencing does something deep inside of us. 

We *know*. 

We know that it's not permanent. We know it's just for a season. We know that it's just for a night. We know that the spring will come. 

We know that whatever God has brought down, He will raise up. 

We know that the sun will rise. 

What gives Jesus the strength from his prayer in the garden, is that he *knows*. He can accept the cross and death, because he knows. He knows that God will raise him up. 

And if we keep coming back to that same mystery, we get that too. That's his gift to us. It enters into us, so that in our darknesses and bottoms and winters, we can have the peace to be able to accept reality, to forgive and love and be our whole selves. To have the patience to continue with hope. 

Because we know. 

We know that the Son will rise. 

“The LORD puts to death and gives life, casts down to Sheol and brings up again." (1 Samuel 2:6)