I have never been to the Vatican, nor have I stayed at a
well-known motel chain, but I know my way around the Stations of the Cross and
the Lives of the Saints. I'm always amazed at the number of people who think
Christmas is the origin of Christianity-others consider the beginnings to be
Easter Sunday.
If the former is The Promise and the latter The Promise
Fulfilled then today, Holy Saturday is the act of faith and hope that defines
you as a Christian. The belief in the Resurrection which the New Testament
portrays as the promised reward for the faithful servant is never so near and
yet oh so far as it is today.
The earliest disciples had nothing to go on, unlike those
of us of the Brave New World Order. They had witnessed a crucifixion-one of the
most egregiously horrific forms of a death sentence at its time. Cowering in an
upstairs room, huddled together while fearing any sound and every footfall was
possibly a signal someone was coming for them, they had no way to see the glory
of Easter Sunday. All they could do was believe.
For them to believe as devoutly as they did between the
worst day in the history of the world and its greatest day remains for me as a
loyal son of Holy Mother Church, but a FARC
for more years than I care to recall, the day which created the
Christian religion, today the test and proof of faith.
From childhood on, I struggled against the suffocation that
surrendering to the traditions and the rites seemed to signify. I took no
solace in unquestioning and unswerving belief, preferring what I understood the
path of Thomas to be and finding no one who could answer my questions,
absenting myself from the body of believers. How odd that this declaration of
freedom has never created a sense of being free.
Not that I don't envy those of faith and think about the
comfort that comes from that and should be a reminder to redouble our efforts
to be the best people we know how to be in The Now because The Next, as the New
Testament illustrates, can be so lonely and uncertain without a reason to
believe.
And either you have a reason, or you become one for someone
else.
When you do, every day is Easter.
-bill kenny
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