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Sign the Petition requesting The Honble Minister of State for Environment
and Forests (I/C) to maintain the moratorium on issuing further
environmental clearances for mining activities in Goa
http://goanvoice.org.uk/miningpetition.php
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2-Apr-2010
Dear Friend,
One of the qualities that help us to go on living in spite of troubles,
failures, disasters, suffering and death itself is the ability to hope. We hope
that our troubles will end, we hope that we will get well soon, we hope that we
will succeed and get what we need, we hope that tomorrow will bring a new day.
But is it just wishful thinking, hoping against hope? Christian hope is based
on the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, which is a guarantee that we too
can look to the future with confidence. Our hope is not in vain, God never
fails. The same God who raised Jesus will help us arise from whatever is
keeping us down. Because Jesus rose again we too will rise! Alleluia! Have a
hope-filled happy Easter! Fr. Jude
Sunday Reflections: Easter Sunday ‘He has risen as he said! Alleluia!
Alleluia!’ 4-Apr-2010
Acts 10: 34, 37-43 Colossians 3: 1-4
John 20: 1-9
The first reading is part of Peter’s speech in the house of Cornelius, which
led to the baptism of the Roman centurion and the conversion of the entire
household. Here Peter proclaims the Easter message, he looks at the entire
life of Jesus from his baptism to his death and how God was with him and how he
lived and died in obedience to the Father’s will. Peter claims to be a witness
to his life, death and resurrection. He claims to be a witness chosen by God to
give testimony to the truth. Peter had eaten and drunk with him after the
resurrection from the dead. Peter has been asked to proclaim to everyone the
fact that Jesus has been raised by the Father, He claims that all those who
believe in him will experience new life and be freed from their sins.
From The Empty Tomb
It was a hot summer afternoon. The famous Hollywood film director Cecil B.
DeMille was drifting in a canoe on a lake in Maine, reading a book. He looked
away from the book momentarily, down to the lake. There a bunch of water
beetles were at play. Suddenly one of the beetles began to crawl up the side of
the canoe. When it got halfway up, it attached the talons of its legs to the
wooden side of the canoe and died. DeMille watched for a minute; then he turned
back to his book. About three hours later, DeMille looked down at the dead
beetle again. What he saw amazed him. The Beetle had dried up, and its back was
starting to crack open. As he watched, something began to emerge from the
opening: first a moist head, then wings. It was a beautiful dragonfly. DeMille
sat there in awe. Then the dragonfly began to move its wings. It hovered
gracefully over the water where the other beetles were at play. But they didn’t
recognize the dragonfly. They didn’t
realize that it was the same beetle they had played with three hours earlier.
DeMille took his finger and nudged the dried-out shell of the beetle. It was
like an empty tomb.
Mark Link in ‘Sunday Homilies’
We know that the Gospels give us two kinds of stories about the resurrection of
Jesus. In some we have the resurrection appearances of Jesus to different
people, in others we have the discovery of the empty tomb. This Sunday’s gospel
deals with the discovery of the empty tomb by Mary of Magdala who visited the
tomb and found it empty and ran to tell Peter and the apostle John. She cannot
understand what has happened and concluded, ‘they have taken him away’. Peter
and John hurry to the tomb and verify that the tomb is empty, they see the
linen cloths on the ground and also the cloth that had been over his head,
rolled up in a place by itself. They do not grasp the significance of what has
happened. But when John enters the tomb he understands by faith what has taken
place and he believes. Initially they did not believe because they did not
realize that all that they had seen had to take place to fulfil the scriptures.
They failed to understand that
he had to die and then rise from the dead. The designation of John as ‘the
disciples that Jesus loved’ should be noted as being the key to his believing
and understanding the good news of the resurrection. It is faith and love that
leads us to believe and understand the ways of God. Is our faith based on an
empty tomb? The early disciples' faith was not based on an empty tomb but on
many appearances of Jesus to his disciples and to their changed lives because
of Him.
“In this Easter Vigil, after a day’s silence during which the Church, as it
were, held her breath in suspense before the empty tabernacles in her places of
worship, a thrilling joy breaks out. Christ has gone down into the valley of
death and has trampled death underfoot! On the third day he rose again…‘we look
for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come’ – this is
the core of our faith. None of the evangelists describes the emergence of Jesus
from the tomb, because they are suggesting a mystery rather than reporting
news. This is the best guarantee that they are in earnest. ‘Most blessed of all
nights, chosen by God, to see Christ rising from the dead’ (Easter
Proclamation). The resurrection belongs to a different category than the
re-animation of a dead body. Lazarus died twice, but Christ raised from the
dead dies no more. All the witness to the first Easter are unanimous about the
empty tomb. The women who came
to embalm Christ’s body never found it; this fact alone ‘proves’ nothing – but
the resurrection needs no such proof. It belongs rather to the category of
signs and mystery. Would faith remain faith if it is insisted on evidence? The
accounts of the apparitions of the risen Christ are a summary of a shared
experience over an indeterminate period of time. These accounts all end with an
exhortation to reject disbelief, to collate the event with the scriptures, to
announce that Jesus is beyond the power of death. He is the eternal living one,
the source of new life for those who believe in him. The Easter faith, born of
doubt resolved, is a continuing act of freedom which says: ‘It is really he; he
is alive!” This is the challenge of Easter to the Church, the body of Christ,
risen and exalted at the right hand of the Father.” -Glenstal Bible Missal
Abide With Me
In the King James Version of the Bible, the invitation of the two travellers
reads, “Abide with us; for it is towards evening and the day is far spent,
“words which were the inspiration for that beloved hymn, “Abide with me, Fast
falls the eventide.” The hymn was written by Henry Francis Lyte, for 25 years
the vicar of the parish at Devonshire, England. He was 54 years old, broken in
health and saddened by dissensions in his congregation. On Sunday, September 4,
1847 he preached his farewell sermon and went home to rest. After tea in the
afternoon, he retired to his study. In an hour or two, he rejoined his family,
holding in his hand the manuscript of his immortal hymn. Despite what most
think, Lyte’s “eventide” has nothing to do with the end of the natural day but
rather the end of life. “Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day, Earth’s
joys grow dim, its glories pass away.” The words are about the faith that faces
life and
death fearlessly and triumphantly in the light of the cross and the empty
tomb… Thus Lyte could conclude, “Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain
shadows flee, in life, in death. O Lord, abide with me.” Vicar Lyte died three
months later.
David Leininger in ‘East of Easter’
Christ Has Risen Indeed!
You probably do not remember the name Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin nor should
you. But during his day he was as powerful a man as there was on earth. A
Russian Communist leader he took part in the Bolshevik Revolution 1917, was
editor of the Soviet newspaper Pravda, and was a full member of the Politburo.
His works on economics and political science are still read today. There is a
story told about a journey he took from Moscow to Kiev in 1930 to address a
huge assembly on the subject of atheism. Addressing the crowd he aimed his
heavy artillery at Christianity hurling insult, argument, and proof against it.
An hour later he was finished. He looked out at what seemed to be the
smoldering ashes of men’s faith. “Are there any questions?” Bukharin demanded.
Deafening silence filled the auditorium but then one man approached the
platform and mounted the lectern standing near the communist leader. He
surveyed the crowd first to the left then to the right.
Finally he shouted the ancient greeting known well in the Russian Orthodox
Church: “CHRIST IS RISEN!” En masse the crowd arose as one man and the response
came crashing like the sound of thunder: “HE IS RISEN INDEED!”
Anonymous
Now I Can Go On Living Again
There was a young woman living in Washington, D. C. during the Second World
War. Her husband, who had been stationed at a nearby army base, was killed a
year earlier during a training exercise – they had been married just four
months. During that whole year, this young widow felt more dead than alive. She
merely went through the motions of living. Her family and friends were worried
about her and wondered if she would ever “snap out of it.” Easter Sunday came
along and a friend asked the young widow to go to church with her. It happened
that they went to hear the legendary Peter Marshall, who preached in an
historic Presbyterian church which still stands in downtown Washington, a few
blocks from the White House. That morning, Peter Marshall spoke of Mary coming
to the tomb and how her tears turned to joy. He described the sound of a wind
rustling through the tomb as if the breath of God were blowing by. He described
the sight of Jesus rising up
from that cold, stone slab, swaying a bit on wounded feet and then walking out
into the garden. He described the smell, “the whiff of strange scents which
must have drifted back to the Man from that tomb, [the smell] of linen and
bandages, spices and myrrh, closed air and blood. By the time Peter Marshall
finished that sermon, the people in that church felt as if they had been there
in the garden to witness the first Easter themselves! When the service was
over, the young widow practically walked on air as she left the church and her
friend couldn’t believe the change which had come over her. “What happened to
you in there? She asked. “The weight has finally been lifted,” the young woman
replied; “now I can go on living again.”
Erskine White in ‘Together in Christ’
Life Is For Living
Tom Riley was a devoted grandfather, ready volunteer and a good friend. He
loved life. But at some point many years ago he had come to the conclusion that
he would die before his sixty-eighth birthday. When he first began to talk
about it, his family found it amusing. Then he started to act on the belief in
earnest a couple of years before he was to turn sixty-eight. He made sure his
will was in order; he visited the Grand Canyon, a long time dream. He gave away
his golf clubs and despite a doctor’s clean bill of health, he took to bed.
Then something happened: a month before that fateful birthday, his eldest
grandson, his favourite, was hit by a car while riding a bicycle. His family
visited the boy leaving Tom home. Imagine their surprise when he walked into
the hospital. He had driven there, even though he had let his driver’s license
lapse six months ago. A doctor came and announced the boy out of danger. Tom
clapped his hands together and said.
“I knew we’d make it!” No one said anything to him. He said what needed to be
said in that statement. He visited his grandson in the hospital every day,
brought him gifts and sneaked in ice cream. His sixty-eighth birthday arrived
and left without a thought. On the day after his birthday, when he visited his
grandson, the family surprised him with a cake, balloons and gifts. His
grandsons’ card was a hand-written note thanking him for still being there. He
had survived that fateful day because of his love for his grandson. He had now
broken the seventy-year mark and had come to the conclusion that he wanted to
live. He sees that it was love for his grandson that kept him going. “Life is
for living,” he says now. “Death will have to take care of itself.”
Dominic Grassi
May the Risen Lord bring fullness into our empty lives!
Fr. Jude Botelho
[email protected]
PS. The stories, incidents and anecdotes used in the reflections have been
collected over the years from books as well as from sources over the net and
from e-mails received. Every effort is made to acknowledge authors whenever
possible. If you send in stories or illustrations I would be grateful if you
could quote the source as well so that they can be acknowledged if used in
these reflections. These reflections are also available on my web site
www.netforlife.net Thank you.
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