Dear friends, I think this piece speaks to what many of us are experiencing today..our minds and hearts lingering on Cavalry, while beckoned by the beauty and freshness and hope of the Resurrection Garden. May Easter bring you and yours the friendship with Christ that lasts and lasts, healing bleading feet until we reach home.

Amen.

“Touched” on Easter Sunday

— Originally posted here on April 19, 2003

Alleluia! Alleluia! The barbaric blows of the Crucifixion have given way to the joyful pealing of the bells in hamlets and major cities around the nation, around the world.

An empty tomb. A gardener’s gentle greeting to the woman in the garden. A meeting with the Mother, too sacred for even John’s pen.

In his simple, yet profound and poetic work, A Life of Jesus, novelist, Shusaku Endo asks, “How did the cowardly disciples come by their sturdy faith after Jesus died? How did this man, ineffectual in their world, who had upset the dreams of his own disciples, come then to be divinized by the same disciples?”

Endo is convinced that the disciples’ unshakable belief in Christ’s resurrection allowed them to appreciate with new eyes his life of love and simplicity. Hence, they were filled with unbounded self-confidence and courage to spread the Good News, even in the face of persecution.

And what about this Easter Day for us disciples, with the guns of war not yet completely silenced? Surprised, are we not, by our inability to shake off the terror of these days and enter fully into the Easter celebration? I don’t think we should chide ourselves too harshly, for in the joy of Resurrection morning, neither Mary nor the disciples would have been able to put aside the Crucifixion entirely.

Besides, would we really want to be able to forget completely the suffering of Calvary, or walk around this day unconcerned about the pain in Iraq, brought about without our consent, but with our money?

Lately, in Mary McKenna’s book, Mary, I found suffering and triumph marching side by side:

McKenna tells of how, in 1976, in Chiapas, Mexico, she had been invited to visit with some of the refugees in the camp. They were Guatemalan Indians in exile, tired and beaten, but still proud and dignified. The camps were huge, located seventy or eighty miles within Mexico’s borders, and the Church, alone, protected the people from the soldiers.

It was July, hot and muggy. There was one water spigot for thousands, and it was a long walk to get the water, with a longer walk back, because of the temptation to stop and drink from one of the two buckets.

After Megan had been there for a few days, her brand-new Reebocks disappeared, and the spare pair given to her didn’t fit well. They were too tight and had no laces.

Her turn to get water for the family with whom she was staying came around every three or four days. One day, by the time she arrived at the spigot, her feet were raw and blistered. There were sixty or seventy people waiting in line, and it moved slowly. She didn’t talk much, since most of the people didn’t speak English.

Each day, one old, tiny woman, dressed in black, would come up to the line, and all conversation would stop. Everyone would move aside to make way for her to go to the head of the line. She would slowly fill one bucket and leave.

The people said she was a little crazy; she called herself the Virgin Mary, la Madre. By the cross out in front of the small adobe church, she could be found most days, where she would lean against the cross for hours on end, just standing there. No one seemed to know where she lived, only that all her children and her husband were dead, brutally murdered, along with her sisters and brothers who hadn’t managed to escape, and disappeared altogether.

The people said, “Everyone respects her and leaves her alone in her grief, but she’s touched.”

That day, Megan’s feet were bleeding, and she had removed her shoes. As usual, everyone moved away in the line to let the woman through, but this time she didn’t leave after filling her pail, but walked down to Megan and stood before her.

Then, she bent down and poured the precious water on her feet, and dried them with the hem of her dress. After that, she drew some muslin from her pocket and wrapped Megan’s feet, then helped her put her shoes back on. She stood up, almost smiled and said, “Bienvenidos, mi hija.” From then on, everyone spoke to Megan. Even though she couldn’t understand their language, she knew she had been accepted.

In various ways, we’ve all been wounded by this war, from the men and women in the Armed Forces, to the families of those killed, to the families of the Iraqi soldiers killed, along with the civilians maimed or killed in the crossfire of war.

According to the war hawks, who seem to multiply daily, we anti-war pilgrims are a bit “touched.” They cannot understand our lack of support for smart bombs and multi-million dollar tanks to spark fear in the hearts of the most stalwart.

An excerpt from a poem by Anna McKenzie, found in Sheila Cassidy’s Good Friday People, may express what many are feeling today:

And so we must begin to live again,
We of the damaged bodies
And assaulted minds,
Starting from scratch with the rubble of our lives
And picking up the dust
Of dreams once dreamt.
...................................
So, as we take our first few steps forward
Into the abyss of the future,
We would pray for
Courage to go places for the first time
And just be there.
Courage to become what we have
Not been before
And accept it,
And bravery to look deep
Within our souls to find
New ways.

Since losing our trust in government officials to act with prudence, justice, and compassion, our steps are less sure, our vision clouded. It takes courage and faith to believe in the power of service over force, to believe that the Christ had it right all along, to be convinced that in following him, we’ll get it right, as well, this very day, “touched” though we may be.

Alleluia, Alleluia! We shall rejoice, for we know in whom we believe, and we have one another, as we begin anew our journey toward the Eternal Easter.

Originally posted here on April 19, 2003

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