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“Easter is over”
At a recent Regional meeting a conversation took place where the refrain, “Easter is over” rang out (in variation) several times. The sentiment being shared was relief from the business of Easter Sunday and the obligations of Easter Week, but I knew great care must be taken. All too often and too easily we equate an event or series of events with meaning the event signified. That is, we externalize what should be life-changing to simply be life-pausing. Here we are in the Easter season. The singular event—Easter Sunday—has passed, and we are progressing steadily towards Pentecost. But the season of Easter is not simply the re-enactment of the period between Easter and Pentecost, it is a gift of reflection and new beginnings. Take these remaining days of Easter to delve the depths of God’s gifts, of salvation and new, eternal life. Reflect and change into the Easter child you are called to be and live. Hear these words of Blessed St. Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, preached at the Great Vigil of Easter (ca. 400) . Chrysostom preached not of a singular event, but of new life and the new living of life now gifted to those who believe. Are there any who are devout lovers of God? Let them enjoy this beautiful bright festival! Are there any who are grateful servants? Let them rejoice and enter into the joy of their Lord! Are there any weary with fasting? Let them now receive their wages! If any have toiled from the first hour, let them receive their due reward; if any have come after the third hour, let him with gratitude join in the Feast! And he that arrived after the sixth hour, let him not doubt; for he too shall sustain no loss. And if any delayed until the ninth hour, let him not hesitate; but let him come too. And he who arrived only at the eleventh hour, let him not be afraid by reason of his delay. For the Lord is gracious and receives the last even as the first. He gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour, as well as to him that toiled from the first. To this one he gives, and upon another he bestows. He accepts the works as he greets the endeavor. The deed he honors and the intention he commends. Let us all enter into the joy of the Lord! First and last alike receive your reward; rich and poor, rejoice together! Sober and slothful, celebrate the day! You that have kept the fast, and you that have not, rejoice today for the Table is richly laden! Feast royally on it, the calf is a fatted one. Let no one go away hungry. Partake, all, of the cup of faith. Enjoy all the riches of his goodness! Let no one grieve at his poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed. Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen from the grave. Let no one fear death, for the Death of our Savior has set us free. He has destroyed it by enduring it. He destroyed Hell when he descended into it. He put it into an uproar even as it tasted of his flesh. Isaiah foretold this when he said, "You, O Hell, have been troubled by encountering him below." Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with. It was in an uproar because it is mocked. It was in an uproar, for it is destroyed. It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated. It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive. Hell took a body, and discovered God. It took earth, and encountered Heaven. It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see. O death, where is thy sting? O Hell, where is thy victory? Christ is Risen, and you, O death, are annihilated! Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down! Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice! Christ is Risen, and life is liberated! Christ is Risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead; for Christ having risen from the dead, is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep. To him be Glory and Power forever and ever. Amen! Ever changed and changing into the likeness of Christ, Fr. Bill+
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The Lord came into your history, into the dust of your human-being, barefoot, and bearing his own cross – all the makings, all the markings of this world eaten love. The Lord came into the darkest corners of your heart, beleaguered, hounded; all his life followed, sought, solicited. Cloying magnitudes, oceans of want, world of pain: here the Lord walks, all his life and object – an object of our devotion. We read it not. We read it never, except through lenses of desire. Reconfiguring, re-clothing this stripped and bleeding, cross-hung form. Carved and hammered and reimagined, earned out of our matter again, and again; we gods like potters play. But this tired Christ came to seek with a once-whole heart; given whole for all the world. Open knows no way but this, this Lord, born opened and pure of being. Born, this Lord, to drag his own cross through our dust. Christ born and Christ being. Incarnate love, walks and reaches, wants us more than 1000 lives of pure yearning. Into my dark den and hell of myself, here is the one who is. Here is the One of God, the Christ: a breathing mercy, a walking, love. By his touch the world is healed. Untouched Lord, cross-bound, borrowed back, our father opens in the hearts of all, this window, this wide open window; in the calamity, the light shines forth. From wherever I am, there will always be this light. The Lord is setting a window in your heart: see, the curtains are being pulled away, slowly, gently; Christ hands reach out into air that reeks of doubt. Beaten, bartered, broken one, be in this light. God be born here before me, God be in me. I pray passive prayers: steal me, heal me, lead me, fix me…a din of delivering up to God with hands that never let go. And this God who walks, whose hem eludes me, heart, undoes me, he offers this one unspeakable gift: not the “I am” of the Father (“tell them… You must tell them, I will be with your mouth, but you must go, go and tell them that I am has sent you.) No, existence was the garden unfathomed, unsavored. Unlived. For such a short stay. We cannot grasp. Cannot model, cannot be. But this, the son who walked, and who walks, dragging his own cross through human dust, this Lord came, and did and was and is because he believed. I so believe in you, I. so. believe. Your insides will crawl and your heart will drown in its own shame, and your quiet, industrious self-sin, thin and close skin, will begin to undo you, from the inside out. You will forget me. You will forsake me. You will neglect and misunderstand me. Cocks will crowd the morning out, and murmurs rage like thunder. A curtain will tear. Beyond Repair. I know. You will befriend part of me, or fly another part like self-righteous flags. Yes, I know. I know the gutters, the rivers of bile in your own soul that you will never even see. You will not see it because I have stretched out my body over it, and my blood has washed you clean. You will never be with me as I am with you. But oh, am I with you. I am the Lord, who has come all this way to find you. I have lit a lamp and swept the whole house looking for you. My lost coin. Did you think your sin would free you from me? Did you plan to slip by through fingers that have cradled the world? Beaten spirit, sin-ridden heart, be quiet here. Lay your head here, and you will see. The window. The footsteps I left in your earnest dust. All that industry. I will hold your head still in my hands. I will hold your heart. Together. I will love your sin white as new snow, for I am the One. I am the one who believes in you. A reflection by Jenny Burk Photo by Jenny Burk of St. Eustache in Paris Live the Resurrected Life
“Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life” Romans 6:4. There are 46 days left in the Easter season. Forty-six days until the celebration of Pentecost. Forty-six days to receive the sacrifice and revelation of Christ. Yes, it is true that life does not end in so many days and that you have the rest of your life to receive the sacrifice and revelation of Christ, but why wait? People need events to inspire change, occasions to make amends, upheavals to change course. Easter is the event, occasion, and cosmos-rending upheaval that you have right now. You have come through Lent rending your heart–not your clothes–in order to allow Christ to take your burdens upon himself and set you free. Now that you are set free by the Good News of the Resurrection, you can embrace fully the gifts that God has given you and the changed you that you are. Within the Resurrection lives the life of Jesus prior to the Crucifixion–who was He to you? Now in this new life, Jesus is the model and inspired witness of humility, kindness, love and toleration. He embodies the gentle spirit of one who cares more for the other than the self and is the inspired witness of devotion to the Father. There you go, easy-peasy. In your post-resurrection life–that is, your concrete, real existence from sunrise to sunset–you need not wonder or wander about searching for inspiration because you possess the Holy Spirit within you. Your connection to Jesus is as graphic as that of anyone you meet or know, and in each moment, He is available to you for comfort and inspiration. Be inspired! Be inspired and dwell on Jesus. Be kinder, give more, love deeper, care ferociously, be as humble as… be as humble as Jesus. The wondrous thing about this change through resurrection that you are now enacting is that you can exercise this new life right now! Embody humility and love through Jesus with the person in the next room, with whoever is on the other end of the phone, and when answering that email. Embody kindness and give more with each encounter and in every situation. Be inspired and live that inspiration right now with everyone in your life. Live your resurrected life with Jesus leading the way. "On that (this) day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you." Living the Resurrected Life, Fr. Bill+ Dear Creator Family,
I pray this is a wonderful and blessed Easter week for you. Rise each morning with the conscious thought of God's love. Traverse the day aware of the Holy Spirit dwelling in you. Give thanks and praise each night for Jesus' sacrifice, witness and promise. I offer these two Easter poems for you as you focus on Him. Easter Joy By Joanna Fuchs Jesus came to earth, To show us how to live, How to put others first, How to love and how to give. Then He set about His work, That God sent Him to do; He took our punishment on Himself; He made us clean and new. He could have saved Himself, Calling angels from above, But He chose to pay our price for sin; He paid it out of love. Our Lord died on Good Friday, But the cross did not destroy His resurrection on Easter morn That fills our hearts with joy. Now we know our earthly death, Like His, is just a rest. We’ll be forever with Him In heaven, where life is best. So we live our lives for Jesus, Think of Him in all we do. Thank you Savior; Thank you Lord. Help us love like you! An Easter Ode By Paul Laurence Dunbar from “Oak and Ivy” To the cold, dark grave they go Silently and sad and slow, From the light of happy skies And the glance of mortal eyes. In their beds the violets spring, And the brook flows murmuring; But at eve the violets die, And the brook in the sand runs dry. In the rosy, blushing morn, See, the smiling babe is born; For a day it lives, and then Breathes its short life out again. And anon gaunt-visaged Death, With his keen and icy breath, Bloweth out the vital fire In the hoary-headed sire. Heeding not the children’s wail, Fathers droop and mothers fail; Sinking sadly from each other, Sister parts from loving brother. All the land is filled with wailing, -- Sounds of mourning garments trailing, With their sad portent imbued, Making melody subdued. But in all this depth of woe This consoling truth we know: There will come a time of rain, And the brook will flow again; Where the violet fell, ‘twill grow, When the sun has chased the snow. See in this the lesson plain, Mortal man shall rise again. Well the prophecy was kept; Christ—”first fruit of them that slept”-- Rose with vic’try-circled brow; So, believing one, shalt thou. Ah! but there shall come a day When, unhampered by this clay, Souls shall rise to life newborn On that resurrection morn. Souls shall rise to life newborn… Fr. Bill+ His Seven Last Words
He hung there. On the cross, tortured. Dying. The hard metal of the nails fastening his legs and feet in place. As he struggled for air and was barely able to breathe, Jesus didn’t hang in silence. He spoke to those around him, to complete strangers and to his family and friends. Jesus was speaking to us in his final hours. In his Seven Last Words, Jesus shows us how he has fulfilled his saving mission and sends us forth to follow in his footsteps. Take the time to reflect on his words and what they mean for your life. Others have entered into this contemplation and offered their thoughts to our aid. The First Word: Father Forgive them for they know not what they do. A reading from Dietrich Bonhoeffer If you’ve ever really forgiven somebody, forgiven some real wrong, all forgiveness is suffering. If you say I forgave and I didn’t suffer, it wasn’t really that serious a wrong. But if you have ever really, truly been wronged, and you have forgiven it, then you have suffered. Because all forgiveness is a form of suffering. If someone has wronged you deeply, there is an indelible sense of debt, an injustice, a feeling you can’t just shrug off. And once you sense this deep injustice, this debt, there are only two things you can do. One is you can make the perpetrator pay—you can find ways to make the perpetrator suffer and pay down the debt, or Two you can forgive. Prayer: As you forgave those who harmed you, and those who silently watched, help us to suffer forgiveness for one another. Join our heart to yours, Lord Jesus. Amen. The Second Word: Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise. Lignum Vitae, a poem by Bernard Fyles What wood is this? Olive or oak, cedar or pine? Unsuited for the cabinet makers’ art Unfit for turning, inlay, elegance, too warped for any honest use, door frame or ladder or carrier’s cart. What wood is this? Sold cheap to minimize the grower’s loss. Too many knots, too twisted, no good except for firewood or a cross. What wood is this? Rough joints, rope lashings, hold it together for the task ahead, and the carpenter’s hands that might have shaped it as they shaped the world are made to drag it through the streets instead. What wood is this? It is the wood of death, the wood of life. Prayer: As you offered words of promise to the criminal, may we also hear you offer words of promise to us. Join our heart to yours, Lord Jesus. Amen. Third Word: Woman, behold your son! Behold your mother! A Reading from Clare of Assisi: A Heart Full of Love by Sister Ilia Delio Place your mind before the mirror of eternity! I wonder how many of us look on the cross as the “mirror of eternity”—a reflection of eternity in the crucified Christ. We rarely think of eternity hanging on a cross unless of course we understand that eternity is God, God is love and God’s love is expressed in the crucified Christ. God is revealed as all-embracing, out-pouring love in the figure of the crucified Christ [in whom] we see a reflection of the eternal God who is the fullness of love. Gazing on the crucified Christ as a way of encountering God can be difficult because we are not attracted to crucified bodies or suffering humanity. To gaze on the crucified Christ is an embrace of the heart—a desire to allow the otherness of God’s love into our lives. It is difficult to see another person’s suffering, if we have not come to terms with our own suffering which opens us to receive the blessing and presence of God. Prayer: As you helped Mary, your mother and John, your friend, remain in the embrace of your heart, help us to experience your love in suffering. Join our heart to yours, Lord Jesus. Amen. The Fourth Word: My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? Lead, a poem by Mary Oliver Here is a story to break your heart. Are you willing? This winter the loons came to our harbor and died, one by one, of nothing we could see. A friend told me of one on the shore that lifted its head and opened the elegant beak and cried out in the long, sweet savoring of its life which, if you have heard it, you know is a sacred thing., and for which, if you have not heard it, you had better hurry to where they still sing. And, believe me, tell no one just where that is. The next morning this loon, speckled and iridescent and with a plan to fly home to some hidden lake, was dead on the shore. I tell you this to break your heart, by which I mean only that it break open and never close again to the rest of the world. Prayer: As you cried out to God in anguish, help us to cry out to you, trusting you hear, and understand. Join our heart to yours, Lord Jesus. Amen. The Fifth Word: I thirst A reading from Mother Theresa’s Devotion to the Thirst of Jesus by Edward Sri In the chapel of the Missionaries of Charity—the order founded by Mother Theresa, there’s a crucifix with the words, “I THIRST” painted in bold black letters next to it. Mother Theresa said these words, “I thirst,” were a constant reminder of the purpose of the Missionaries of Charity. "We have these words in every chapel of the Missionaries of Charity to remind us what Missionaries of Charity are here for: to quench the thirst of Jesus for souls, for love, for kindness, for compassion, for delicate love." Ever since her call to serve the poorest of the poor in 1946, Mother Teresa insisted that the Missionaries of Charity were founded "to satiate the thirst of Jesus," and she included this statement in the founding Rules for the new religious order: "The General End of the Missionaries of Charity is to satiate the thirst of Jesus Christ on the Cross for Love and Souls." Mother Theresa says, “Why does Jesus say ‘I Thirst’? What does it mean? 'I Thirst' is something much deeper than just Jesus saying 'I love you.' Until you know deep inside that Jesus thirsts for you — you can't begin to know who He wants to be for you. Or who He wants you to be for Him.” What specifically is Jesus thirsting for in us? He longs for our love — our attention, our ardent devotion, the total entrusting of our lives to Him. At this most difficult time He proclaimed, 'I thirst.' And people thought He was thirsty in an ordinary way and they gave Him vinegar straight away; but it was not for that thirst; it was for our love, our affection, that intimate attachment to Him, and that sharing of His passion. He used, 'I thirst,' instead of 'Give Me your love'. . . 'I thirst.' Let us hear Him saying it to me and saying it to you.” Prayer: As you thirst for our love, our attention, our ardent devotion, help us to quench your thirst with our lives, with our total trust, with our intimate attachment to you. Join our heart to yours, Lord Jesus. Amen. The Sixth Word: It is finished A poem by Frederick William Faber, 1849 O come and mourn with me awhile; O come ye to the Savior's side; O come, together let us mourn; Jesus, our Love, is crucified. Have we no tears to shed for him, while soldiers scoff and foes deride? Ah! look how patiently he hangs; Jesus, our Love, is crucified. How fast his hands and feet are nailed; his blessed tongue with thirst is tied, his failing eyes are blind with blood: Jesus, our Love, is crucified. His mother cannot reach his face; she stands in helplessness beside; her heart is martyred with her Son's: Jesus, our Love, is crucified. Seven times seven he spoke, seven words of love; and all three hours his silence cried for mercy on the souls of men; Jesus, our Love, is crucified. O break, O break, hard heart of mine! Thy weak self-love and guilty pride his Pilate and his Judas were: Jesus, our Love, is crucified. A broken heart, a fount of tears, ask, and they will not be denied; a broken heart love's cradle is: Jesus, our Love, is crucified. O love of God! O sin of man! In this dread act your strength is tried; and victory remains with love; for he, our Love, is crucified. Prayer: As you finished the demands of holy love—a body broken, a soul crucified—help us to find our wholeness in you. Join our heart to yours, Lord Jesus. Amen. The Seventh Word: Father into thy hands I commend my spirit! Were You There When They Crucified My Lord? Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble. Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Were you there when they nailed him to the tree? Were you there when they nailed him to the tree? Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble. Were you there when they nailed him to the tree? Were you there when they pierced him in the side? Were you there when they pierced him in the side? Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble. Were you there when they pierced him in the side? Were you there when the sun refused to shine? Were you there when the sun refused to shine? Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble. Were you there when the sun refused to shine? Were you there when they laid him in the tomb? Were you there when they laid him in the tomb? Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble. Were you there when they laid him in the tomb? Prayer: As you enter the realm of death, may we trust that you usher into the realm of life. Join our heart to yours, Lord Jesus. Amen. Pray, Lord, Open Unto Me Open unto me — light for my darkness. Open unto me — courage for my fear. Open unto me — hope for my despair. Open unto me — peace for my turmoil. Open unto me — joy for my sorrow. Open unto me — strength for my weakness. Open unto me — wisdom for my confusion. Open unto me — forgiveness for my sins. Open unto me — love for my hates. Open unto me — thy Self for myself. Lord, Lord, open unto me! Amen. by Howard Thurman In contemplation, Fr. Bill+ |
AuthorFather Bill Burk† Archives
May 2026
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