GUEST EDITORIAL BY RUSSELL POLLITT SJ
Have you ever wondered why our churches overflow on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, but on Easter Sunday the number of congregants reflect those of any other Sunday?
Is it a sign of what we really believe? Or might it be that we have become so accustomed to living in a society which relentlessly drenches us with bad news that we find it much easier to identify with the ash and the cross?
Perhaps we hear so few stories with a happy ending that we are no longer attuned to good news. Bad news (in all its forms) is all around us; it’s become our staple diet in South Africa.
It’s easy for us to tell the bad news stories; it’s easy for us to point to all that is wrong in our own lives and in our country. The media remind us constantly of the ever-present ash and cross. Yet our Christian story does not end like so many stories around us, it does have a happy ending—the ending we celebrate on Easter Sunday.
The resurrection of Jesus does not deny the bad news—he confronts and experiences bad news like we do. However, the bad news was not the end of the story for Jesus—and it shouldn’t be for us either.
Jesus, in his resurrection, sees beyond the bad news and invites us to do the same. It wasn’t easy for him and it isn’t easy for us (remember, after his resurrection Jesus’ hands and feet still bear the wounds of crucifixion). Like Jesus our wounds should not be and are not the end of our story.
Our celebration of Easter is a proclamation of our triumph over the ash and the cross. It is an invitation to us to name experiences of victory over bad news in our lives and in our world.
We are invited out of the tomb of bad news (death) and defeat into the glorious light of resurrection. It is a celebration in which we rejoice that Jesus has risen from the dead and that, in our own lives, some of our stories end in happy endings. Can we identify and name those stories?
The Good News of the resurrection has a dramatic effect on the disciples—from being fearful “runaways” they become bold witnesses! The Good News of the resurrection gives them a new found confidence in themselves and God. It gives them new vision and empowers them to tell others. Our good news stories will do the same. How different our country would be (and our own state of mind?) if we had a “resurrection” story as the lead story on TV and in our newspapers every day?
I had a powerful encounter with a 16-year-old in a trauma ICU. She was a victim of a terrorist attack. She almost lost one of her legs completely and the other was seriously damaged. Many of her companions lost their lives in the bomb. In a second her life was changed, the brutal inhumanity of one group towards another. Every day she was fighting to keep her legs and underwent many surgical procedures. One day she was in the most indescribable pain and the threat of infection loomed. Through her tears she told me that she hated what had happened to her and found it so sad that people could do this to each other. Then she told me, and this was beyond comprehension, how she couldn’t hold this against them: “I forgive them”, she said.
This was a moment of resurrection. In the midst of her bad news I heard words of good news. This young lady, like Jesus, was triumphant over the forces of darkness. She taught me something about resurrection.
All of us have a good news story to tell, and it doesn’t have to be dramatic. Celebrate your story with Jesus’ resurrection; rejoice in the triumph he won. Live the resurrection, not the ash and cross.
Regarding the overflowing presence for ash and cross, reflects more – in my experience – to the formation of Catholics to feelings of guilt, shame, inadequacy so that they will more readily submit, without question, to Church teachings and Authority. Who is responsible for that? It is now a catch 22 question – or better – the Church finding itself to be between a rock and a hard place! Church leadership now wants pray and obey members, yet needs energised, awake faithful to collaborate in the mission Christ gave to ALL.
Surely we all know by now that spiritual energy is not forthcoming from those burdened under the yoke of negativity.
PS. At this most Holy time, we look at the Cross long and hard in order to know the immeasurable love God has for each one of us (human beings and ALL). If we look long enough and hard enough we find Compassion that encompasses ourself and all others. The day of the Cross is really something we should be celebrating – why did nobody teach me that (or rather why did I not grasp that at a young age?)
So true… I belong to a christian fellowship group at work (mixed denominations but I am the only catholic). During the Easter period I asked the leader if we could do something special for Good Friday and he said to me (not maliciously), ” Why do catholics focus on His death and not His resurrection – which is a celebration”. I had never thought of this before but it is so true and your article brings this home to me even more. thank you
Catholics focus on BOTH Good Friday and the glory of the Resurrection. Protestants only on the Resurrection. Their crucifixes do not show the body of Jesus on the cross. Why is that? I do not know. I wonder whether it could be that they prefer the easier part of History, the easier way in life…..
The reasoning: take an example. Divorce: I am unhappy, I divorce my wife/husband, find a nice ,suitable new person in my life, get married again and I live very happily thereafter.It’s easy,so I think. So much easier.
The easier way through life : that’s basically the Protestant thinking.
That’s not the Catholic thinking.
The concept of Sacrifice is not quite a Protestant concept.
So the Sacrifice of Good Friday is possibly overlooked and the focus goes on the Resurrection,which is ,after all,a happier event….
In Catholicism, there is ,there always has been a balance, a wisdom, a deep understanding of life, of the world, and the Church has grown in a natural way.
The Catholic Church has the whole Truth and her mission is to teach the world, to evangelize the world, she also wants our Lord and Saviour to reign socially, He is the King of this world. The world must submit to Him so that man will at last find peace.