April 11/Holy Saturday
You make springs gush forth in the valleys; they flow between the hills,
By the streams the birds of the air have their habitation; they sing among the branches.
From your lofty abode you water the mountains; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.
LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. ~ Ps 104. 10, 12-13, 24
After the desolate emptiness of Good Friday, on this Easter eve we celebrate the fullness of budding life. Yesterday, broken dishes, reproaches, vinegar and gall. Today, the unfolding splendor of creation, retold: flowing springs, birds singing in the branches, the earth brimming with the fruit of the works of God. This is how it is for us, too. We become depleted by our difficulties, particularly in this long slog through the pandemic. Lent is long, and repentance hard. And we feel empty. But in cleaning out our interior spaces through the hard work of prayer and penitence, we have created room for inundating joy. Over the past forty days, each of us has had to give up more than we ever thought possible, certainly more than we would have voluntarily sacrificed. Life in the time of a plague has provided plenty of individual crosses to be carried. Many of us have tried, as much as we could, to go into the darkness and confront what is there: the imperfections, the flaws, the brokenness. We surrender them to God, and offer our empty selves to him, as Christ did. And then, miraculously, those dead spaces become alive again. Our brilliant Jesuit poet G. M. Hopkins, chastened by pangs and forepangs as he was, also knew joy: “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” And he saw and felt the life that asserts itself, against all odds: “There lives the dearest freshness deep down things.” As we wait for tomorrow’s Easter dawn, beset as we are by uncertainty over the future, let us surrender to the animating spirit of love, gratitude, and hope, as we prepare to rejoice in the glory and majesty of the risen Christ.
Almighty God, who shows us definitively on this day that love is stronger than death, fill my heart with the joy of the resurrection. Amen.
To hear The Sixteen sing William Byrd’s “Laetentur Coeli,” click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yqLmjpm-zk
For today’s readings, click here: http://cms.usccb.org/bible/readings/041120.cfm
