Contemplative Haven

Apr 12 2009

Easter Sunday

Published by gabrielle at 2:44 am under Merton, Triduum

light-of-christ

From: The Sign of Jonas [Thomas Merton], pgs. 297-298 – Easter Sunday, 1950

“The grace of Easter is a great silence, an immense tranquility and a clean taste in your soul. It is the taste of heaven, but not the heaven of some wild exaltation. The Easter vision is not riot and drunkenness of spirit but a discovery of order above all order – a discovery of God and of all things in Him. This is a wine without intoxication, a joy that has no poison hidden in it. It is life without death….

If Mass could only be, every morning, what it is on Easter morning! If the prayers could always be so clear, if the Risen Christ would always shine in my heart and all around me and before me in His Easter simplicity! For His simplicity is our feast, this is the unleavened bread which is manna and the bread of heaven, this Easter cleanness, this freedom, this sincerity. O my God, what can I do to convince You that I long for Your Truth and Your simplicity, to share in Your infinite sincerity which is the mirror of Your True Being, and is Your Second Person! Only the little ones can see Him. He is too simple for any created intelligence to fathom. Sometimes we taste some reflection splashed from the clean Light that is the Life of all things: Baptism, First Mass; Easter morning. Give us always this bread of heaven. Slake us always with this water that we may not thirst forever.”

5 responses so far

5 Responses to “Easter Sunday”

# Carolon 12 Apr 2009 at 2:48 pm

Amen. Easter is Home, both the one(s) in which we grew up, and the one that awaits us. It’s where the two lines meet, where the veil was torn from top to bottom. It is as near to our Home as we can get while in exile, and that is why the churches are packed literally to the rafters every year, and the Eucharist Jesus is why tens of thousands of Americans alone come to the Table to be fully initiated every Easter vigil.

The Lamb of God is Risen King, and it’s with His darkest purple tallit with a wide white stripe that He en-arks an earthly altar, and holds up and open like wings, not dark but all light within, for us to be gathered under. . both ever lovingly covenantal, and somberly awaiting His others.

Happy, happy Easter.
# lucyon 13 Apr 2009 at 12:06 am

happy easter, gabrielle!
# Piaon 14 Apr 2009 at 10:20 am

I was just thinking this morning, how different I feel after Easter morning..It happens every year, a sort of renewal, an interior resurrection of sorts…
# Carolon 15 Apr 2009 at 9:44 am

I love his phrase “a clean taste in your soul.” How apt. Merton is one of the penultimate Catholic seekers of God, isn’t he? He’s brilliant, multi-cultural, truly a teacher –yet he remained as humble as a snail. Or maybe I should say as humble as St. Francis. Most monks seem to be that way, thank God. Merton speaks from the human heart, as well as the holy soul, and he timelessly touches both men and women of every age.

As we walked through the parking lot into the church’s back door (we knew we’d be stuck in either the Chapel or the parish hall, since we arrived only 15 minutes before Easter Sunday Mass!), I noted all the out-of-state license plates. Families gather from near and far for this day. And for some, yes, if this is one of the only two days they go to Mass, well, they’ve gone to Mass all together –and this is the moment it passes to the littlest children among them. Easter Sunday Mass–absolutely crucial foundation for the littlest. For all I read of how the faith is dying, our parishes here in the northeast of America all always well-peopled, and on the holy days, and days even like Thanksgiving when it’s not obligatory, we’re packed. But Easter Sunday is that moment akin to when the four couldn’t get their buddy in the door due to the crowd, and thus lowered him on his sickbed before the Lord. I think in 57 years, I have never missed an Easter Sunday Mass, and that wasn’t only my own doing.. I’m so thankful.

I like your phrase, too, Pia “an interior resurrection.” Yes!
# gabrielleon 19 Apr 2009 at 1:13 am

Hellooooooo…I’m a tad late, but I hope you all did have a lovely Easter. I went to the Easter Vigil on Saturday night as usual. Just beautiful, as usual! What a joy to see the purple coverings on the crucifixes gone, gone, gone. I sometimes think that is the most difficult part of Lent.