Looking Deeper - An Easter Reflection

Dear Marists,

Welcome to the Easter edition of our Newsletter. It is already April, and I am sure many of you are wondering where the first three months of 2006 have gone! The busyness of life is an ever-present reality in our fast-paced world as we try to juggle the many demands placed upon us by our work and families, and oft-times, by ourselves!

But for each of us, there are those special, transformative moments in our lives that cause us to stop, reflect and pray deeply. It might be the loss of a job or a marriage, of good health or a relationship, or even the death of someone deeply loved. We very quickly realise the deeper reality of such situations. Deeper, because we are called to look within ourselves, to reassess who we really are and what is of most importance in our lives. These, too, are the times when we experience a sense of powerlessness, when we are at our most vulnerable.

Holy Week, which culminates with the joy of Resurrection, gives us the opportunity to engage deeply and passionately with Jesus, a man like us, who experienced loss, vulnerability, powerlessness.

Cate Kennedy worked as an Australian volunteer in Mexico. In her book, "Sing, Don't Cry - A Mexican Journal", she traces a compelling journey where her life becomes inextricably intertwined with those of poor Mexican farmers and their families . .

Early on in the book, before she has come to understand the Mexican gusto for celebration, pilgrimages and family,, she describes Semana Santa, Holy Week.

"In towns all over Latin America during Semana Santa re-enactments are being played out, and it's not unheard of, as in the Philippines, for those portraying Jesus to request that they really be nailed by the hands and feet, to better experience the suffering of the Saviour.

It's hard not to feel a bit like an amateur anthropologist, observing these vast, cultural eccentricities. They are so strange, so fervent, and I am so much of a sectarian outsider, confronted by a vision of the Catholic Church distilled over 400 years into this intoxicating brew of drama and excess.

I watch the telecast frozen with an outsider's fascination as the women on the screen scream for the actor playing Jesus to reach out and bless them, and penitents fling themselves to the ground choking with grief. This is no anaemic, homogenised Easter church service, fitted in between hot cross buns and 'King of Kings' on the midday movie. Instead, the line between reality and fantasy seems to have run, something deeply primal is going on, and I observe it uneasily as I sip my cup of tea." .

This Easter, we have a choice. We can be a bit like the 'amateur anthropologist', the 'outsider,' who experiences Easter in a clinically, ritualised way. Or, we can feel deeply and passionately the sorrow and suffering of Christ and in so doing, open our hearts to the suffering in our world.. We might even acknowledge our own suffering and brokenness.

Only then, can we experience the deep joy and truth of the Risen Christ in our world and in ourselves.

Maria Baden