Sam believes that Gandalph has fallen a catastrophic distance and has died. But in the end of the story, with Sam having been asleep for a long while and then beginning to regain consciousness, Gandalf stands before Sam, robed in white, his face glistening in the sunlight, and says:

“Well, Master Samwise, how do you feel?”

But Sam lay back, and stared with open mouth, and for a moment, between bewilderment and great joy, he could not answer. At last he gasped: “Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?”

“A great shadow has departed,” said Gandalf, and then he laughed, and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days without count. It fell upon his ears like the echo of all the joys he had ever known. But he himself burst into tears. Then as a sweet rain will pass down a wind of spring and the sun will shine out the clearer, his tears ceased, and his laughter welled up, and laughing he sprang from bed… “How do I feel?” he cried.” Well, I don’t know how to say it. I feel, I feel” –he waved his arms in the air– “I feel like spring after winter, and sun on the leaves; and like trumpets and harps and all the songs I have ever heard!”

— J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973), The Return of the King

Update: The music which accompanies the arrival of the eagles in the movie that goes with the “Is everything sad going to come untrue” words in the movie is worth listening to also.

The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation ”” This story begins and ends in joy.

— J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973)

Moist, with one drop of thy blood, my dry soule
Shall (though she now be in extreme degree
Too stony hard, and yet too fleshly) be
Freed by that drop, from being starved, hard, or foul,
And life, by this death abled, shall control
Death, whom thy death slew; nor shall to me
Fear of first or last death, bring misery,
If in thy little book my name thou enroll,
Flesh in that long sleep is not putrified,
But made that there, of which, and for which ’twas;
Nor can by other means be glorified.
May then sins sleep, and deaths soon from me pass,
That waked from both, I again risen may
Salute the last, and everlasting day.

”“John Donne (1572-1631)

RIse heart; thy Lord is risen. Sing his praise
Without delayes,
Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise
With him mayst rise:
That, as his death calcined1 thee to dust,
His life may make thee gold, and much more, just.

Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part
With all thy art.
The crosse taught all wood to resound his name,
Who bore the same.
His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key
Is best to celebrate this most high day.

Consort both heart and lute, and twist a song
Pleasant and long:
Or, since all musick is but three parts vied
And multiplied,
O let thy blessed Spirit bear a part,
And make up our defects with his sweet art.

–George Herbert (1593-1633)

Above all the gospel accounts of Easter compel our attention. “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” One version of this wonderful day begins with a voice of negation, a crucial question which many people never answer. Are we looking for love in all the wrong places? Are we clinging to earthly things and forgetting those things which do not pass away?

Then we hear “come and see.” To see with the full eyes of one’s heart is a rare thing indeed. So many times in life we look but do not see, do not perceive as God perceives. The power of the post-resurrection narratives is that each person is met on his or her terms. What wondrous love is that, as the Holy Spirit by his power opens our eyes.

The dynamic does not stop with the question and the call to see, however. If we really see who God is and his power to change lives and transform them into the likeness of his glory, we cannot keep it to ourselves.

Where I served my curacy in South Carolina, we had many Clemson football fans; they root for the Tigers whose color is orange. One day I visited a family devoted to Clemson and, I kid you not, even their toilet seat cover was orange. Bless them, they loved to tell the story of a particular University. One wonders whether an Easter people have a similar passion to share Jesus’ love for the world.

He is risen. Why? Come. See. Go. Tell. Alleluia.

”“The Rev. Canon Dr. Kendall S. Harmon is the host of this blog

If I had a Son in Court, or married a daughter into a plentifull Fortune, I were satisfied for that son or that daughter. Shall I not be so, when the King of Heaven hath taken that sone to himselfe, and married himselfe to that daughter, for ever? I spend none of my Faith, I exercise none of my Hope, in this, that I shall have my dead raised to life againe. This is the faith that sustains me, when I lose by the death of others, and we, are now all in one Church, and at the resurrection, shall be all in one Quire.

”“John Donne (1572-1631) [my emphasis]

This is the meaning of the words by St. Paul: “Christ was raised for our justification.” Here Paul turns my eyes away from my sins and directs them to Christ, for if I look at my sins, they will destroy me. Therefore I must look unto Christ who has taken my sins upon himself, crushed the head of the serpent and become the blessing. Now they no longer burden my conscience, but rest upon Christ, whom they desire to destroy. Let us see how they treat him. They hurl him to the ground and kill him. 0 God; where is now my Christ and my Saviour? But then God appears, delivers Christ and makes him alive; and not only does he make him alive, but he translates him into heaven and lets him rule over all. What has now become of sin? There it lies under his feet. If I then cling to this, I have a cheerful conscience like Christ, because I am without sin. Now I can defy death, the devil, sin and hell to do me any harm. As I am a child of Adam, they can indeed accomplish it that I must die. But since Christ has taken my sins upon himself, has died for them, has suffered himself to be slain on account of my sins, they can no longer harm me; for Christ is too strong for them, they cannot keep him, he breaks forth and overpowers them, ascends into heaven, and rules there over all throughout eternity. Now I have a clear conscience, am joyful and happy and am no longer afraid of this tyrant, for Christ has taken my sins away from me and made them his own. But they cannot remain upon him; what then becomes of them? They must disappear and be destroyed. This then is the effect of faith. He who believes that Christ has taken away our sin, is without sin, like Christ himself, and death, the devil and hell are vanquished as far as he is concerned and they can no longer harm him.

”“Martin Luther (1483-1546)

When I was studying for the priesthood at Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, the former bishop of Albany, Dan Herzog, made a visit. During his time with faculty and students, he told a story about the power of Easter I’ve never forgotten.

Bishop Herzog told of how, just after he was ordained to the priesthood, he was the administrator of a mental hospital. And during his tenure there, he ministered to a particular woman who suffered from schizophrenia. Her treatment, however, turned out to be most unusual. During the time in which Bishop Herzog met with her for therapy, Holy Week approached. The woman took an unexpected interest. She asked if she could go to church with him on Palm Sunday. He agreed, and took her to a small Anglo-Catholic parish nearby, and there they experienced together, in the Church’s liturgy and ceremony, the drama of the Passion narrative. The woman was so moved that she wanted to come back the next day. So they went back, together, on Monday. And then they were back on Tuesday, and Wednesday, and right into the Holy Triduum, taking in the whole story of Christ’s betrayal, suffering, crucifixion, and resurrection. (By the way, Triduum means literally, “Three Days” in Latin””and this refers to those three holiest of days of the Christian calendar: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter, beginning at the Great Vigil Saturday evening.)

I don’t remember the details about exactly when it happened, but somehow in this process of experiencing the Easter story in the liturgies of the Church, the woman was healed. Bishop Herzog chalks it up as a bona fide miracle: after celebrating the Easter Vigil on Saturday night, this woman claimed to be cured of her schizophrenia. She was evaluated, soon thereafter, and was de-institutionalized. She then got a job, and got married, and went on to lead relatively healthy life.

Now, that is truly a powerful story. And it would be the height of foolishness on my part, in relaying it, to suggest that you can expect a miracle like that if you turn out for Holy Week, or more particularly for the services of Triduum: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil. (In fact, miracles are called “miracles” because they can’t be formulated or manufactured, and the Almighty seems to do them when people expect them least!)

But what you can expect, I think, if you are faithful during these holiest days of the year, if you take part in this great story of our redemption, centering your life in the passion and resurrection of Christ, is that somehow you will be changed. In some way, great or small, God’s Spirit will renew your heart and mind as you remember these “mighty acts” of Christ, transforming you in some way for your good and for his glory. And you will find yourself on Easter Sunday, in some way, a little more free, a little more healed, a little more healthy and whole.

The truth is that in all miracles, God is just showing us how he is transforming and healing all of creation. C.S. Lewis, once writing about the extraordinary miracles that occur in the Gospels, said, “I contend that in all these miracles alike the incarnate God does suddenly and locally something that God has done or will do in general. Each miracle writes for us in small letters something that God has already written, or will write, in letters almost too large to be noticed, across the whole canvas of Nature.”

That’s what you can expect. That in the drama of Christ’s passion and resurrection, God’s work in renewing creation will be poured deeper into your heart and life.

—Father David Houk, Saint John’s, Dallas, Texas

Because the newly public message which is the good news of Easter is at one and the same time so obvious ”“ the message of new creation, which answers the deepest longings of the whole cosmos ”“ and so utterly unexpected that if we are to announce God in public in these terms, as Paul did so spectacularly at Athens, we need the preceding private stillness to rinse our minds out of preconceived notions and make ready for God’s startling new world. Note, by the way, that it is the public truth of Easter ”“ the dangerous, strikingly political truth that the living God is remaking the world and claiming full sovereignty over it ”“ that has been for two hundred years the real objection, in western thinking, to the notion that Jesus rose bodily from the tomb. Western thought has wanted to keep Christianity as private truth only, to turn the Lion of Judah into a tame pussy-cat, an elegant and inoffensive, if occasionally mysterious, addition to the family circle.

And part of the point of where we are today, culturally, socially, politically and religiously, is that we don’t have that option any more. We face a dangerous and deeply challenging future in the next few years, as the demons we’ve unleashed in the Middle East are not going to go back into their bag, as the ecological nightmares we’ve created take their toll, as the people who make money by looking after our money have now lost their own money and perhaps ours as well, as our cultural and artistic worlds flail around trying to catch the beauty and sorrow of the world and often turning them into ugliness and trivia. And we whose lives and thinking and praying and preaching are rooted in and shaped by these great four days ”“ we who stand up dangerously before God and one another and say we are ready to hear and obey his call once more ”“ we have to learn what it means to announce the public truth of Easter, consequent upon the public truth of Good Friday and itself shaped by it (as the mark of the nails bear witness), as the good news of God for all the world, not just for those who meet behind locked doors. Every eye shall see him, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn as they realise the public truth of his Easter victory. But we can only learn that in the quiet privacy around the Lord’s Table, and the humble stillness where we lay aside our own agendas, our own temperamental preferences, in the darkness of Holy Saturday. When we say Yes to the questions we shall be asked in a few minutes’ time, we are saying Yes to this rhythm, this shaping, of our private devotion to our Lord, our private waiting on him in the silence, in order to say Yes as well to this rhythm, this shaping, of our public ministry, our living out of the gospel before the principalities and powers, our working with the grain of the world where we can and against the grain of the world where we must.

Read it all.

In the early Church there was a custom whereby the Bishop or the priest, after the homily, would cry out to the faithful: “Conversi ad Dominum” ”“ turn now towards the Lord. This meant in the first place that they would turn towards the East, towards the rising sun, the sign of Christ returning, whom we go to meet when we celebrate the Eucharist. Where this was not possible, for some reason, they would at least turn towards the image of Christ in the apse, or towards the Cross, so as to orient themselves inwardly towards the Lord. Fundamentally, this involved an interior event; conversion, the turning of our soul towards Jesus Christ and thus towards the living God, towards the true light. Linked with this, then, was the other exclamation that still today, before the Eucharistic Prayer, is addressed to the community of the faithful: “Sursum corda” ”“ “Lift up your hearts”, high above the tangled web of our concerns, desires, anxieties and thoughtlessness ”“ “Lift up your hearts, your inner selves!” In both exclamations we are summoned, as it were, to a renewal of our Baptism: Conversi ad Dominum ”“ we must distance ourselves ever anew from taking false paths, onto which we stray so often in our thoughts and actions. We must turn ever anew towards him who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. We must be converted ever anew, turning with our whole life towards the Lord. And ever anew we must allow our hearts to be withdrawn from the force of gravity, which pulls them down, and inwardly we must raise them high: in truth and love. At this hour, let us thank the Lord, because through the power of his word and of the holy Sacraments, he points us in the right direction and draws our heart upwards. Let us pray to him in these words: Yes, Lord, make us Easter people, men and women of light, filled with the fire of your love. Amen.

Read it all.

All night had shout of men, and cry
Of woeful women filled His way;
Until that noon of sombre sky
On Friday, clamour and display
Smote Him; no solitude had He,
No silence, since Gethsemane.

Public was Death; but Power, but Might,
But Life again, but Victory,
Were hushed within the dead of night,
The shutter’d dark, the secrecy.
And all alone, alone, alone,
He rose again behind the stone.

–Alice Meynell (1847-1922)

Italy’s most prominent Muslim commentator is converting to Catholicism by being baptized by the pope at an Easter vigil, the Vatican announced Saturday.

Magdi Allam is the deputy editor of the Corriere della Sera newspaper and writes often on Muslim and Arab affairs. Born in Egypt, he has described himself as a non-practicing Muslim. He has long spoken out against extremism and in favor of tolerance.

Pope Benedict XVI was baptizing seven adults during the service, which marks the period between Good Friday, which commemorates Jesus’ crucifixion, and Easter Sunday, which marks his resurrection.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said of Allam before the service that anyone who chooses to become a Catholic of his or her own free will has the right to receive the sacrament.

Read it all.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
I returned home from the House of Bishops meeting and a short day and a half visit with my family in Texas late last Saturday, just in time to attend my daughter, Catie’s musical performance at Hadley Luzerne High School. With the first of my three flights being delayed taking off for over two hours, causing me to have to reschedule and reroute my follow on flights, it was truly an answer to prayer and blessing from God, that I got home in time for the performance. It was a wonderful evening. All the kids did a great job. In regard to the House of Bishops Meeting, it wasn’t quite so wonderful. I will be reporting more on that in the coming days after Easter.
I began Holy Week doing that which I enjoy most, visiting out in the Diocese. On Palm Sunday I was with Fr. Rob Holman and the people of the Church of the Good Shepherd, Elizabethtown. Following the service and reception, Fr. Rob and I went to the hospital in Plattsburgh to visit his wife Mana and newborn son, Benjamin. We give thanks to God for the birth of Benjamin and ask your prayers for Mana, who is now home recovering from complications from the delivery. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the recovery that Mana is making and ask that you will continue to bathe her in the love and healing grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Welcome Home Initiative, held this past Monday through Wednesday at Christ the King SLC, which honored and ministered to combat veterans and their families, went very well. Much healing took place. This first Welcome Home Initiative was a trial session for what we hope will become a major ongoing ministry to the brave men and women who have given so much in defense of our country and fighting for the freedom of people throughout the world. I want to say a special thank you to Fr. Nigel Mumford, Lt. Col. Noel Dawes, and all the members of their team and the staff at Christ the King, for offering yourselves as a channel through which God’s love and healing grace could flow forth.

Each of the three Chrism Masses this week went very well. Monday evening, we met at the Cathedral of All Saints, Albany. Tuesday night we were at St. James, Oneonta. Wednesday, we celebrated the Chrism Mass at St. Thomas’ Church, Tupper Lake. I felt very blessed to share in the renewal of ordination vows with my fellow deacons and priests in the Diocese. I want to thank each of you who made a special effort to be there. I also would like to thank each of the three host parishes for their warm welcome and wonderful hospitality in serving dinner to all the clergy and their families in attendance.
For those who were unable to attend, extra oil for healing and chrism may be picked up at The Cathedral of All Saints, Albany, or at Christ the King SLC. The appropriate way to dispose of old oil and chrism is to burn it.
Yesterday, I joined Fr. Brad Jones and the parishioners of Christ Church Schenectady, as well as a number of ecumenical brothers and sisters from local Schenectady churches for the Stations of the Cross Good Friday Procession. We walked three miles through Hamilton Hill and surrounding Schenectady neighborhoods praying the Stations and singing hymns while carrying a large wooden cross. It was a very moving and holy experience. I have prayed the Stations of the Cross numerous times over the years, but always within the confines of the Church or at a retreat center, never walking down the streets in town. No matter how hard we try, we can never adequately duplicate the journey our Lord made, dragging His cross through the streets of Jerusalem to Calvary.
Praying the Stations, however, can give us little glimpses of the pain and suffering Jesus endured on our behalf. The howling wind and bitter cold was the first thing to greet us as we began our journey. What pain we might have experienced from the cold is trivial compared to Jesus’ pain of being whipped, scourged, beaten, and then nailed to a cross with huge nails pounded through his flesh and bone, and then hung high in the air for everyone to see. Every breath was a struggle.
As we walked the streets of Schenectady, we were greeted in a variety of ways. Some people stopped and looked, not saying a word. Some continued on with what they were doing, apparently oblivious to our presence. Others held out hands to welcome us saying God Bless You and Happy Easter. Others however, were not happy at all, as they shouted obscenities from their doorways and windows. Perhaps this last response came closest to that which our Lord experienced as he heard over and over the shouts ring out ”“ “Crucify Him, Crucify Him!” As we heard the shouts of obscenities and walked past boarded up houses and littered streets, and people struggling to make a living, we witnessed first hand the brokenness of the world in which we live, and our desperate need for the love and redeeming grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Our sins, joined with the sins of all of humanity, nailed Jesus to the cross. However, it wasn’t the nails that kept Him there. It was Jesus’ love for the Father and His love for each of us, that kept Him clinging to the cross, clinging until the very last sin of all time was placed upon Him ”“ the Paschal Lamb. Bearing the sins of all the world, for all time, upon Himself, Jesus cried out, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34) It was then that Jesus cried, “It is finished.” With that, He bowed his head and gave up His spirit. (John 19:30).
On the third day, Jesus rose from the dead, conquering the power of sin and death. He invites us and all people who believe and trust in Him, accepting Him as Lord and Savior, to share in His resurrected and eternal life. That is the Easter message, the Good News of Jesus Christ, which the entire world so desperately needs to hear. I encourage you to invite someone you know who is in need of hearing this Good News to come with you to Church. May you and all your family and loved ones have a blessed and joyful Easter. God Bless You!!!

In Christ’s Love,

–The Rt. Rev. Bill Love is Bishop of Albany

One thing must move us forward on this journey. What is in play at the beginning of the third millennium, is not the same as what was in play at the beginning of the second millennium, when there was the separation of East and West; nor is it the same as what was in play in the middle of the same millennium when there was the separation of Catholics and Protestants. Can we say that the way the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father or how justification of the sinner comes about are the problems that impassion the men of today and with which the Christian faith stands or falls? The world has moved beyond us and we remain fixed by problems and formulas that the world does not even know the meaning of.

In battles in the Middle Ages there was a moment in which, after the infantry, archers and cavalry had been overwhelmed, the melee began to circle around the king. There the final outcome of the fight was decided. Today the battle for us also takes place around the king. There are buildings and structures made of metal in such a way that if a certain neuralgic point is touched or a certain stone is removed, everything falls apart. In the edifice of the Christian faith this cornerstone is the divinity of Christ. If this is removed, everything falls apart and faith in the Trinity is the first to go.

From this we see that today there are two possible ecumenisms: an ecumenism of faith and an ecumenism of incredulity; one that unites all those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and that Christ died to save all humankind, and an ecumenism that unites all those who, in deference to the Nicene Creed, continue to proclaim these formulas but empty them of their content. It is an ecumenism in which, in its extreme form, everyone believes the same things because no one any longer believes anything, in the sense that “believing” has in the New Testament.

“Who is it that overcomes the world,” John writes in his first letter, “if not those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1John 5:5). Sticking with this criterion, the fundamental distinction among Christians is not between Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants, but between those who believe that Christ is the Son of God and those who do not believe this.

Read it all.

Merciful God,
by the death of your Son Jesus Christ
you destroyed death;
by his rest in the tomb
you have made holy
the graves of your saints.
Keep us with Christ
in the company of all who wait for you on earth
and all who surround you in heaven;
where he lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever.
Amen.

In the midst of life we are in death.
We grow and wither as quickly as flowers;
we disappear like shadows.
To whom can we go for help, but to you, Lord God,
though you are rightly displeased because of our sins?
And yet, Lord God Almighty,
most holy and most merciful Saviour,
deliver us from the bitterness of eternal death.
You know the secrets of our hearts;
mercifully hear us, most worthy judge eternal;
keep us, at our last hour,
in the consolation of your love.

You, O Lord, are gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and rich in love.
As kind as a father is to his children,
so kind is the Lord to those who honour him.
For you know what we are made of;
you remember that we are dust.
As for us, our life is like grass.
We grow and flourish like a wildflower;
then the wind blows on it, and it is gone
no-one sees it again.
But for those who honour the Lord, his love lasts forever,
and his goodness endures for all generations.

Lord God our Father,
maker of heaven and earth:
As the crucified body of your dear Son
was laid in the tomb
to await the glory that would be revealed,
so may we endure
the darkness of this present time
in the sure confidence
that we will rise with him.
We ask this through your Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever.
Amen.

Loving Father, we thank you that your Son, Jesus, our human brother, carried the terrible burden of our sin on his shoulders. But after Jesus, our human brother, offered himself up for us as the perfect sacrifice for all people’s sin, he rested in the tomb, for he was completely exhausted, to the very point of death. As he had always kept your holy law perfectly for our sake, so we thank you that, out of love as our God and brother, he perfectly fulfilled the third commandment, to rest on the Sabbath day.

Refresh us this day as we rest in the peace of your forgiveness. Renew us when we rest in the sleep of death, and fill the deathly silence of the tomb with the promises of your word, especially with the good news of Jesus’ victory over our powerful enemies, Satan, death and sin.

Father, you give us life by your creative Spirit, who is the Lord, the giver of life. You have designed us to rest from each day’s activities in the gentle massage and healing of your precious gift of sleep. Wake us refreshed to live the gift of each new day. Touch our spirits so that we want to please you, as we play out our roles on this earth, even when it means using up our lives for the sake of other people you put near to us, in our families, in the congregation and in our local community.

Marciful God, you have designed us to find peace of mind when we take refuge and rest in your arms of faith. Renew us each day to live as your children. Continue to renew us with your promises, until the day you call us home and we rest in perfect peace, joy and love with you in eternity.

We ask this through Jesus, who entered the tomb of death for us, so that we might live with him forever.
Amen

That the Redeemer is solidarity with the dead, or, better, with this death which makes of the dead, for the first time, dead human beings in all reality”“this is the final consequence of the redemptive mission he has received from the Father. His being with the dead is an existence at the utmost pitch of obedience, and because the One thus obedient is the dead Christ, it constitutes the ”˜obedience of a corpse’ (the phrase is Francis of Assisi’s) of a theologically unique kind. By it Christ takes the existential measure of everything that is sheerly contrary to God, of the entire object of the divine eschatological judgment, which here is grasped in that event in which it is ”˜cast down’ ”¦. But at the same time, this happening gives the measure of the Father’s mission in all its amplitude: the ”˜exploration’ of Hell is an event of the (economic) Trinity.

”“Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988)

In this empty hallway, there’s nothing expected of us at this moment. The work is out of our hands, and all we can do is wait, breathe, look around. People sometimes feel like this when they’ve been up all night with someone who’s seriously ill or dying, or when they’ve been through a non-stop series of enormously demanding tasks. A sort of peace, but more a sort of ”˜limbo’, an in-between moment. For now, nothing more to do; tired, empty, slightly numbed, we rest for a bit, knowing that what matters is now happening somewhere else.

”“Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams

So then, there remains a sabbath rest for the people of God;
for whoever enters God’s rest also ceases from his labors as God did from his.

–Hebrews 4: 10-11

HOW life and death in Thee
Agree !
Thou hadst a virgin womb
And tomb.
A Joseph did betroth
Them both.

”“Richard Crashaw (1613-1649)

I was honored to work a bit with Mr. Hassler a few years ago, as Loyola Press prepared to bring North of Hope back into print as part of the Loyola Classics series. (I ended up writing the introduction.) It’s an absorbing, big book that may be, on its most obvious level, about a priest, but is more deeply about decisions, regret, redemption and living life at peace in the midst of that reality – life is not what we thought it would be when we were young. But perhaps, miraculously, it is better, even through the pain, than anything our limited vision could have imagined for ourselves.

From my introduction to North of Hope:

”¦into this reality ”” sometimes a very cold and ugly reality, because that is the way life can be ”” warmth creeps, slowly. All of the characters in North of Hope face crises, small and great. The real drama, slower, absorbing, and deep, lies in the process of these same characters emerging from the crises that have shaken them, and accepting that the past cannot be changed. You are where you are, and right now, another choice presents itself. You can drown in regret and self-loathing or you can reconnect with life, with hope ”” with God.

Read it all.

“Of all the people I know,” Marquand observed, “only Americans, because of some sort of inferiority complex, keep attempting the impossible and trying to get away from their environment.” Jon Hassler has never made that mistake. His novels are set in the small-town world where he was born and in which he has spent the whole of his 74 years, and his characters are ordinary people who spend their days grappling, sometimes successfully and sometimes not, with the ordinary problems of life, love, aging, and death.

One of the things that makes these characters so distinctive is that many (though not all) of them are churchgoers. Not coincidentally, Hassler is a Catholic novelist, and certain of his books are very decidedly the work of a Catholic novelist. Yet their temperate emotional climate has little in common with the claustrophobic creations of, say, Graham Greene or François Mauriac. In Hassler’s novels, no one, not even the priests, is obsessed with the problem of faith in the modern world, nor do his teachers, grocery-store owners, and family doctors take much of an interest in what Browning called “the dangerous edge of things.” They are simply trying to get along in a complicated world, and though they view that world through the prism of belief, most have learned that few answers are quite so easy as they look.

Read it all.

Beloved author Jon Hassler, whose inconquerable will to write became as much admired as his novels steeped in small-town Minnesota, died early Thursday of Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, a Parkinson’s-like disease. He was 74.

Hassler, of Minneapolis, battled PSP for almost 15 years, a disease that progressively stole his ability to write, to speak and, finally, to walk. But, fueled by the sheer force of will and the love and support of his wife, Gretchen Kresl Hasssler, Hassler devised ways to keep at it.

A spirited problem-solver, Hassler wrote his most recent few novels by “typing.” His fingers, however, would fall randomly on the keyboard, and only he could read the resulting “gibberish.” He’d translate the typewritten pages to Gretchen, who would type then retype them.

Read it all.

Dear Kendall: [My husband] and I are in [a certain geographical locale] for six weeks this year. Going to a small but orthodox Episcopal church and a wonderful non-denominational women’s Bible study, but other than that, it has been a hard six weeks spiritually away from my home parish and diocese. Wanted to let you know what your posting the last couple of days have meant to me. They have been profound and life changing, almost like reading sermons or hearing great preaching. Thank you so very much.

On Good Friday I did take my…dog… over to the ocean to watch the riptides and listen to Christian music. Out of the blue came 30 pelicans, my favorite bird, and it was like a glimpse of the beauty and joy we will experience in Heaven.

Bless you and your family with a glorious Resurrection Day.

Silence and stillness reigns today. We can reflect on Christ’s descent to the abode of the dead, there declaring that the final death has been conquered once-and-for-all. He preached hope to the hopeless and life [to] those who had none.

Holy Saturday is a day to pray for those who walk among us as the living dead. Their hope is placed in all things other than Christ and, for them, death will be ultimate, final, and hopeless.

Yet, they are living in the interval. The thunder has not sounded, signaling the end. Christ is there for them, declaring the same hope he did on the first Holy Saturday.

Let us pray for our family members, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and even those who are known to God but merely cross our path.

Read it all.

Today, Holy Saturday, the day after Jesus’ crucifixion on Good Friday, remains a day of watchful expectations among the faithful, harking back to that mournful time when He lay in a borrowed tomb lent by His friend Joseph of Arimathea.

Also known as “Black Saturday,” this was a period of great uncertainty among the followers of Jesus. They felt abandoned after His death without a future to look forward to. It was also on that day that Judas Iscariot, out of remorse over his betrayal of his Master, hanged himself.

In Philippine Catholic churches today, altars remain bare with religious images still draped in black and purple to stress the continuing somber week of the final days of Lent.

Read it all.

Take the time to go through them all.

”¦Suddenly all of them standing around the gallows know it: he is gone. Immeasurable emptiness (not solitude) streams forth from the hanging body. Nothing but this fantastic emptiness is any longer at work here. The world with its shape has perished; it tore like a curtain from top to bottom, without making a sound. It fainted away, turned to dust, burst like a bubble. There is nothing more but nothingness itself.

The world is dead.

Love is dead.

God is dead.

Everything that was, was a dream dreamt by no one. The present is all past. The future is nothing. The hand has disappeared from the clock’s face. No more struggle between love and hate, between life and death. Both have been equalized, and love’s emptying out has become the emptiness of hell. One has penetrated the other perfectly. The nadir has reached the zenith: nirvana.

Was that lightning?

Was the form of a Heart visible in the boundless void for a flash as the sky was rent, drifting in the whirlwind through the worldless chaos, driven like a leaf?

Or was it winged, propelled and directed by its own invisible wings, standing as lone survivor between the soulless heavens and the perished earth?

Chaos. Beyond heaven and hell. Shapeless nothingness behind the bounds of creation.

Is that God?

God died on the Cross.

Is that death?

No dead are to be seen.

Is it the end?

Nothing that ends is any longer there.

Is it the beginning?

The beginning of what? In the beginning was the Word. What kind of word? What incomprehensible, formless, meaningless word? But look: What is this light glimmer that wavers and begins to take form in the endless void? It has neither content nor contour.

A nameless thing, more solitary than God, it emerges out of pure emptiness. It is no one. It is anterior to everything. Is it the beginning? It is small and undefined as a drop. Perhaps it is water. But it does not flow. It is not water. It is thicker, more opaque, more viscous than water. It is also not blood, for blood is red, blood is alive, blood has a loud human speech. This is neither water nor blood. It is older than both, a chaotic drop.

Slowly, slowly, unbelievably slowly the drop begins to quicken. We do not know whether this movement is infinite fatigue at death’s extremity or the first beginning – of what?

Quiet, quiet! Hold the breath of your thoughts! It’s still much too early in the day to think of hope. The seed is still much too weak to start whispering about love. But look there: it is indeed moving, a weak, viscous flow. It’s still much too early to speak of a wellspring.

It trickles, lost in the chaos, directionless, without gravity. But more copiously now. A wellspring in the chaos. It leaps out of pure nothingness, it leaps out of itself.

It is not the beginning of God, who eternally and mightily brings himself into existence as Life and Love and triune Bliss.

It is not the beginning of creation, which gently and in slumber slips out of the Creator’s hands.

It is a beginning without parallel, as if Life were arising from Death, as if weariness (already such weariness as no amount of sleep could ever dispel) and the uttermost decay of power were melting at creation’s outer edge, were beginning to flow, because flowing is perhaps a sign and a likeness of weariness which can no longer contain itself, because everything that is strong and solid must in the end dissolve into water. But hadn’t it – in the beginning – also been born from water? And is this wellspring in the chaos, this trickling weariness, not the beginning of a new creation?

The magic of Holy Saturday.

The chaotic fountain remains directionless. Could this be the residue of the Son’s love which, poured out to the last when every vessel cracked and the old world perished, is now making a path for itself to the Father through the glooms of nought?

Or, in spite of it all, is this love trickling on in impotence, unconsciously, laboriously, towards a new creation that does not yet even exist, a creation which is still to be lifted up and given shape? Is it a protoplasm producing itself in the beginning, the first seed of the New Heaven and the New Earth?

The spring leaps up even more plenteously. To be sure, it flows out of a wound and is like the blossom and fruit of a wound; like a tree it sprouts up from this wound. But the wound no longer causes pain. The suffering has been left far behind as the past origin and previous source of today’s wellspring.

What is poured out here is no longer a present suffering, but a suffering that has been concluded”“no longer now a sacrificing love, but a love sacrificed.

Only the wound is there: gaping, the great open gate, the chaos, the nothingness out of which the wellspring leaps forth. Never again will this gate be shut. Just as the first creation arose ever anew out of sheer nothingness, so, too, this second world – still unborn, still caught up in its first rising – will have its sole origin in this wound, which is never to close again.

In the future, all shape must arise out of this gaping void, all wholeness must draw its strength from the creating wound.

High-vaulted triumphal Gate of Life! Armored in gold, armies of graces stream out of you with fiery lances. Deep-dug Fountain of Life! Wave upon wave gushes out of you inexhaustible, ever-flowing, billows of water and blood baptizing the heathen hearts, comforting the yearning souls, rushing over the deserts of guilt, enriching over-abundantly, overflowing every heart that receives it, far surpassing every desire.

”“Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988)