Love and Light
Each year I am struck by the beauty of the movement from darkness into light at the Easter Vigil Mass. It begins with the fire outside the church, then the Paschal candle, and then it is shared from candle to candle—light spreading light spreading light. The light represents Christ coming into the world and God’s triumph over death. It is the light of God’s love given to us in Christ.
The light of the Easter candle is not diminished by its being shared and spread. Instead, it keeps on growing. Likewise, God’s love grows when its spreads, without ever diminishing its original source. Love tends to beget love. When we receive love, our most natural experience is to want to share it. And when we share love, our own loving energy does not diminish at all. Love is not a finite commodity. Love multiplies.
In the Gospel reading from Mark for the Easter Vigil, Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb early when the sun has just risen (Mk 16:2). She and other friends of Jesus discover an empty tomb. Their movement from the darkness of grief into the light of the Resurrection takes time. It takes time for the disciples to absorb the reality of the Resurrection and to understand the full meaning of the empty tomb. For us, too, it takes time to grasp the meaning of the Resurrection in our own lives.
Thankfully, Easter is not only one day. It is an octave and a season, a day stretching out into many days. For religious and laypeople who pray the Divine Office (liturgy of the hours), many of the Psalms and Canticles of the first day are repeated throughout the octave. It is as though God’s gift of love is so great that a single day cannot possibly contain it. The day overflows, stretching beyond the usual boundaries of time. The Easter season continues into a full fifty days—longer than Lent.
How do we celebrate? Do we practice Lenten penance for 40 days but then celebrate Easter for only one? Or do we recognize that we are invited to an Easter joy where the full meaning of Easter continues to unfold?
On the one hand, the Resurrection is a definitive, unique moment in history. God transforms the history of human kind and all creation through Jesus’ passion and Resurrection. God saves us from sin and death permanently and decisively. On the other hand, God’s creative power to bring new life out of death is still ongoing. The story does not end with an empty tomb. It does not even end with Mary Magdalene meeting the risen Lord, or Peter’s reconciliation with Jesus, or Thomas touching his wounded side. It continues all the way through Pentecost and into our lives, too.
In several of the Resurrection encounters, there is a repeated pattern: Jesus connects, heals, and missions. Jesus meets a grieving Mary Magdalene, speaks her name with love, and then missions her to go and tell the others (Jn 20:11-18). Jesus goes to the disciples, who are fearful and hidden away in a locked room. He forgives them, breathes the spirit on them, and instructs them to go and to forgive others (Jn 20:19-23). Jesus reconciles with Peter and then tells him to tend his sheep and prepare to follow him (Jn 20:24-29). God’s gift of life and love in the Resurrection is shared with us. We are invited to spread God’s love to all those who are in need of healing, who can then themselves share that love and to bring it to others—light passed on to light.
Where there is grief, fear, or anxiety, God wants to heal it. Where there is death, God wants to bring new life. Where there are social ills, God wants justice to flourish again. God’s creative power is always acting to bring life out of situations that may appear to be nothing but death and sin. St Paul writes, “We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). We can actively seek the signs of the Resurrection over these fifty days of Easter.
Where do we see signs of new life?
Where do we experience healing and renewal?
Where do we see the sprouting seeds of justice?
Where are there moments of mercy?
Where is the Risen Christ among us?
God’s light seeks to illuminate all the dark spaces of our lives, even the most hidden recesses of the human heart. It is a light of peace, gentleness, and joy. It is a light of love.
Then we are missioned to go and to share that Resurrection love with others. God’s love is shared with us and dwells within us. The Lord takes away our “stony hearts” and gives us “natural hearts” (Ez 36:26). How do we want to share that gift with others?
I find it comforting that when Thomas asks to see the wounds of Jesus and to touch them, he finds a risen Jesus whose healed wounds are still visible. Thomas, like the others, experienced shock, fear, and grief with Jesus’ brutal death. Perhaps for Thomas, it was important to see the same Jesus who was wounded, because in a secondary way, Jesus’ friends were also wounded through their connection to Christ. Yet the Resurrection is not the undoing of history, but rather its transformation. We, like Thomas, can touch the healed wounds of the risen Christ and know that he also touches, knows, and heals our own. Then they, too, can be an occasion for creative compassion.
Near the end of the Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius asks those making the retreat to pray the Contemplation to Attain Divine Love. We begin by contemplating all the good gifts that God has given to us. God continually labors for our good. God is continually creating, redeeming, and dwelling in all of creation. God even wants to give us the greatest gift of all: God’s self. We are invited into ever deepening union with this God of love. We can pray about how we desire to make a return on that love by giving of ourselves. If “love is shown in deeds, not words,” then each one of us can consider, how do I want to love, not only by how I feel, but also by what I want to do?
At Easter, we renew our baptismal vows in order to “reject sin, so as to live in the freedom of the children of God.” God gives us the freedom to live in restored relationship with God and with one another. We are freed by Love in order that we may love freely. How do we want to pass on the light of love this Easter?
Suggestions for Prayer and Practice:
- Celebrate the fullness of the Easter season. Many of us have family or community traditions for Easter Sunday. What celebratory practices might be part of the longer season? Is it attending daily Mass as a way to express gratitude to God? Flowers or music at meals? Choosing to undertake a small hidden act of love each day?
- Journal or keep a small notebook to notice and name the signs of new life, in our own lives, the lives of friends and family, in the natural world. Savor and enjoy these God-given gifts.
- Pray with the image of light. Where is the light of Christ visible? Who has passed it on to me? With whom do I want to share it?
- Poverty, war, racism, and other injustices continue in our world. Yet we are invited to look for the seedlings of justice and mercy. If God’s light helps them to grow, how do I want to help to water them?
- A Canticle from the Book of Daniel is among the beautiful prayers from Morning Prayer for the Easter Octave. It is a prayer of blessings. Find it here: https://www.ccel.org/node/4480.