LENT WK 6: OUR DAILY PASCHAL MYSTERY
As we enter Holy Week, we pray for grace to live the way of the Cross and following Jesus.
The Paschal mystery is the reflection on Jesus’ experiences on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of Holy week. Basically, his death, the mystery of Saturday in the grave, and the resurrection. We see this cycle of death, mystery, and resurrection in the fabric of creation. One such cycle is sunset, the dark night, and the following sunrise. Another example would be a seed being placed in the ground at planting, the mysterious growth in the earth, and the sprout of the plant breaking forth from the earth to its new life. If these cycles can be seen in creation, how can they be seen in our lives today?
Recently I became acquainted with Ronald Rolhesier who wrote The Holy Longing (1999) in which he describes an expanded view of this mystery by naming “five clear, distinct moments within the paschal cycle: Good Friday, Easter Sunday, the forty days leading up to the Ascension, the Ascension, and Pentecost.” He defines paschal death as “a death that, while ending one kind of life, opens the person undergoing it to receive a deeper and richer form of life” (p.146). Jesus’ resurrection opened the way for us to receive new life, but as we see in the gospel, the Spirit came at Pentecost to give them the power that they need to live the new life they had received. For the disciples, they had forty days to experience the resurrected Jesus and adjust to this surprise of his resurrection and their new life in him.
Rolheiser suggests that we can expect to experience this cycle many times within our own lives as we pay attention and as we allow ourselves to move through. He suggests that we can: name our deaths, claim our births, grieve what we have lost and adjust to the new reality, choose not to cling to the old (as Jesus told the disciples not to cling to him at the Ascension) but let it ascend and give a blessing, and finally to accept the Spirit of the life that you are in fact living (p. 148).
Perhaps in naming our deaths, we release old things to die. These “old things” may be outdated images of ourselves, or what we used to do, or what we used to have. I’m reminded of the humility of Jesus in his lack of clinging to the old as, “though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something he had to cling to. Instead, he gave up his privileges…he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death” (Phil 2:6-8, NLT). That imagery of ceasing to “cling” is perhaps the invitation of the paschal mystery. Maybe we need to stop and notice what we cling to and ask if it keep us from the life God is giving us to lead now.
Some possible reflection questions for this week:
What are your deaths to name this Holy week, and how can the image of Jesus’ suffering help you?
If you let go of what you cling to, how might that bless you, or what life could open up for you?
What grace would you need to embrace the suffering that “letting go” might produce?