ALLELUIA! HE IS RISEN! Are we?

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ALLELUIA! HE IS RISEN! Are we?

“Spring has sprung.”  You know it with your whole being.  The earth has come alive and you feel its movement above you and below you.  Even the birds in your back yard know it.  Have you noticed the way they feel the ground with their keenly attuned feet while cocking their heads and pressing ears nearer the earth?  Finally, certain of the movement below, they plunge and find the worm which will soon reach eager and hungrily-waiting beaks. Though a new awareness is dulled frequently by the concrete realities of day-to-day living, all of us are sparked at least momentarily by this annual appearance of new life.  However if anyone revels in the sights and sounds of spring too long (and we are quite sure we know how long too long is), we label them as dreamers, dealers in fantasy.  Though their hearts sing joyfully at the rebirth of earth, they are dubbed impractical, and strangely, not down to earth. Easter, coinciding as it does each year with spring, reminds us that the impossible dream has been realized.  In the annual Easter Vigil Eucharist, the Church articulates and spells out with more dramatic emphasis the Paschal mystery which is renewed and re-lived each day through the Eucharist.  Jesus Christ has moved and changed both the earth and us in our very depths. Jesus has conquered death.  He lives again.  He lives in us.  We live in Him.  We live in an  eternal spring right now.  The implications of these facts are staggering.  How alive are we?  Do others perceive us as alive, enthusiastic people risen in the Lord?  Centuries ago, St. Augustine said Christians should be an ALLELUIA from head to toe.  Has Christianity come of age in our time?  Can we Christians be recognized by our joy?  ALLELUIA!

—Sister Mary E. Penrose, OSB

 

Sister Mary E. Penrose is a Sister of St. Scholastica Monastery in Duluth, Minnesota. She edits readings for the liturgical Hours and writes reflections for the Community. And she is a tutor for the African Sisters attending The College of St. Scholastica. She was editor of a journal, Spirit & Life, for 18 years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Reflections, Uncategorized

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“Listen carefully, my child, to your master's precepts, and incline the ear of your heart. Receive willingly and carry out effectively your loving father's advice, that by the labor of obedience you may return to Him from whom you had departed by the sloth of disobedience.”
–St. Benedict of Nursia, The Rule of Saint Benedict