Father Pothin’s Reflection for Easter 2016

The Gospel. St John xx. 1.

It is good for us, on this Easter celebration, to reflect on the experience of the women which also speaks to us. For that is why we are here: To enter, to enter into the Mystery that God has accomplished with his vigil of love. We cannot live Easter without entering into the mystery. It is not something intellectual, something we only know or read about. It is more, much more!

“To enter into the mystery” means the ability to wonder, to contemplate; the ability to listen to the silence and to hear the tiny whisper amid great silence by which God speaks to us (see 1 Kings 19:12). To enter into the mystery demands that we not be afraid of reality, that we not be locked into ourselves, that we not flee from what we fail to understand, that we not close our eyes to problems or deny them, that we not dismiss our questions.

To enter into the mystery means going beyond our own comfort zone, beyond the laziness and indifference which hold us back, and going out in search of truth, beauty, and love. It is seeking a deeper meaning, an answer, and not an easy one, to the questions which challenge our faith, our fidelity and our very existence. To enter into the mystery, we need humility, the lowliness to abase ourselves, to come down from the pedestal of our “I” which is so proud, of our presumption; the humility not to take ourselves so seriously, recognizing who we really are: Creatures with strengths and weaknesses, sinners in need of forgiveness. To enter into the mystery we need the lowliness that is powerlessness, the renunciation of our idols, in a word, we need to adore. Without adoration, we cannot enter into the mystery.

–Fr Pothin