ALLELUIA

THIS IS THE DAY THAT THE LORD HAS MADE. LET US BE GLAD, AND REJOICE IN IT.

Why look among the dead for someone who is alive?  (Luke 25:5)

When you think of Easter what image do you see?
The hint of longer, lighter days to come...
the hills bursting with new-born lambs...
the scramble for the hidden, coloured eggs in garden, house or field...
the Easter bunnies, or the dark-coated ribboned eggs decorating the sideboard?

All these perhaps, yet each is but a faint, far-off image of what it is to us as Easter people.

Our song is ever and always the alleluia of the angels as they look on him whom sin has pierced and love has healed... now risen and glorious, standing triumphant against all that would demean or limit us and offering without price the promise of a life that holds eternal joy.

Praise him!

"I wish you all a Happy Easter, full of graces; graces of renewal of spirit, of fresh strength and energy in our Lord's service."
(Mother Magdalen)

After the Easter Vigil, we should be full of joy and hope. 
So we pray:

Come, Risen Lord Jesus
Easter in us,
Be a day-spring to the dimness of us today,
and always that we may bring glory to you. (Joyce Huggett)

If you have the energy, get up at dawn to see the sunrise and pray... If not, just enjoy the day and sing "alleluia" in your heart.

Happy Easter!

Mary's Day

Today, we celebrate Mary's special privilege of being free from sin from her conception.  The Church has always believed that Mary was specially favoured, as the greeting from the Angel Gabriel implied in Luke's account of the Annunciation, and this was made an article of faith in 1854.  Remember that, when little Bernadette Soubirous asked the beautiful lady who appeared to her at Lourdes who she was, the lady answered: "I am the Immaculate Conception."  That was beyond Bernadette's understanding of course,  but the Bishops and priests around her understood what she meant. It was Our Lady herself who was appearing on the rock in Massabielle - she was using her title to help them to realise who she was.

We believe that Mary, as Mother of God, is, as Wordsworth said in the Ecclesiastical sonnets : "Our tainted nature's solitary boast."  He meant that Mary never went into that darkness patrolled by Satan and his cohorts which we call sin.  She was always so close to God that sin never entered her soul.  She was born without original sin, which we know is the tendency we have to allow ourselves to be pulled into sin, into doing things that harm us.  St. Paul, even though he was a great Saint, once said, ruefully, to the Christians of Rome:

"I know of nothing good living in me -living that is,  in my unspiritual self - for though the will to do good is in me, what I do is not, with the result that, instead of doing the good things I want to do, I carry out the sinful things I do not want."  That is called original sin.  We know that feeling well.   We are pulled into sin, or tempted to sin, and we often don't resist it.  But Paul goes on to encourage us - he says that, in the power of the Holy Spirit we are able to resist the attacks of Satan, and live in the light. 

Mary is the fresh breath that blows away the darkness and despair that sometimes seem to cover our world.  She reaches out to us, heals our fears, our loneliness and our pain, and makes us feel better.  That's the work of a good mother.  She is our best friend, as my mother always used to tell us.  She really is.  She understands us, and never judges us.  She wants us to "do good" as the slogan puts it.  She is our role model.  She wants the young people of our world, in particular, to use the gifts God gave them, enthusiasm, energy, joy and so much else, to bring life and love into our world.  You think that doesn't include you?  You're not young any longer?  Wrong.  If you have the Holy Spirit in your heart, if you "act justly, love tenderly, and walk humbly with your God" you will always be young in heart.  Isn't that a comforting thought?  Ask Mary to look after you today, to be your friend, to keep you young, beautiful and joy-filled.  She'll do it.  Let's pray to her:

Mary, our Mother, we wish you a happy feast.  We love you very much, and we want you to befriend us, to show us what we ought to do to be heralds of the Gospel, so that its good news may reach the ends of the earth.  Be with all those who are in dangerous places today, those who are sick, those who are bitter and angry.  Help them, and us, to be better people, more loving, more generous, more thoughtful, and help us to have thankful hearts, so that we can say exultingly with you: "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour!"    Have a good day. 

Prepare the way of the Lord!

John the Baptist was wonderful wasn't he? He never let anything come in the way of what he believed was what God wanted him to do.  He went straight for the jugular in a spiritual sense of course! Uncompromising? tough? serious? No holds barred?  A loner?  It's possible that he was all of those things, but the essential John has been captured by the readings for this second Sunday of Advent which are all about preparation, expectancy, forgiveness. John believed in preparation. "Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight!" he roared. Not a man to be ignored, I'd say, wouldn't you? He'd have made a good site manager on a modern building project.  No delays possible, no excuses, no procrastination - just get on with the job in hand - "This is what the Boss wants, let's do it for him."  You know, we like people like that - the ones who get things done, who make our lives peaceful and orderly, who help us to see where we should be going.  It makes for a stress-free existence.  But John meant a lot more than that.  He wanted us to repent!
Of what? We ask ourselves.  Well, for a start, our self-centredness, our cluttering up our lives with non-essentials, our forgetfulness of the need to pray. Advent is a lovely time. It is a time for that special peace which Jesus came to give us. It is a time for that quiet joy which is its hallmark.  Our Foundress told us:

"I want you all to be joyful at this time.  Why should we not be joyful to welcome him who comes to bring us joy?" No reason really, except the things we hold on to which block the way to God's peace - the worst one is unforgiveness. We are hurt, we smart, we get angry and want to hit back. We persuade ourselves that it isn't our fault = the other one owes us an apology!  And we refuse to be the first to reach out to reconcile our differences.  I was once at a funeral of a mother of a large family.  She had worked all her life for her children and then her grandchildren, but some sort of grievance broke out between some members of the family, and they stopped speaking to one another.  They visited the mother when she was dying on different days so that they could never meet.  She begged them to reconcile their differences but they refused.  At the  cemetery they took up their positions on either side of the open grave....  I have never forgotten that image - the mother who loved them all in the middle of two implacable enemies, both of whom wept for her.  John would say to us today:" Don't let the sun go down on your anger!"  It is good advice.  Advent is a time of mercy, of forgiveness, of peace.  "I will hear what the Lord God has to say, a voice that speaks of peace..." we read in the Psalm for the Second Sunday, and the response is: "Let us see O Lord your mercy, and give us your saving help!"  Well, how can we expect mercy when we refuse to give it to others? 

Let's try to make this Advent special by ridding ourselves of the things that make us and others unhappy. That's what John meant by preparing the way of the Lord.  Have a lovely Advent.  We will be praying for you all!