RESURRECTION

ONE OF THE FEW REMAINING TOMBS LIKE THIS

I don't want to be disrespectful, but would you blame someone for wanting to get away from the traffic noise?  Of course not.  Surely, Jesus wasn't laid to rest by the side of the paved road that you see here.   Besides, this particular tomb is in the Galilee.  That's close to 100 miles north of Jerusalem, so some  rich person must have occupied this one.  The best article I have discovered about "Rolling Stone Tombs" is available to you by clicking here.

It is clear that this style tomb was never very common.  Mainly because it could only be acquired and/or built by the wealthier people of the time.  The picture below will give you a perspective of the size and possible weight of the stone.  There are three ladies sitting in front of the main entrance to the tomb. You can tell that the round stone is rather massive.

TWO SMALL FILIPINO LADIES AND ONE LARGER COLUMBIAN

From this picture it is easy to see why the ladies who were going to attend to the care of the body of Jesus were so preoccupied about how to move the stone away from the opening.  

After having spent long periods of time in front of the opening of the Sacred Tomb where Jesus was committed, I thought that I had been moved to the apex of my emotional, spiritual and intellectual reactions.  That tomb with which I was very familiar has been radically changed because of the baroque architecture surrounding it in the church of the Holy Sepulcher.  It looks like this.

HOLY SEPULCHER ENTRANCE

I was mistaken.  When I saw the bare stone tomb in Galilee, I came to the realization that this was the real thing.  I came then to the knowledge of Faith that Jesus had begun his earthly life in a cave that His created Mother Earth offered Him and that she once again provided Him with the shelter he needed as He was preparing to return to His Father's side.

I hereupon leave you with my prayers and wishes for a happy and holy Easter.  I also remind you that now that you know that I am carrying all these things in my heart, it is impossible for you to cry at my funeral.

MORE THINGS CHANGE, MORE THEY STAY THE SAME

At every stage of the change of liturgical seasons I go back to my mother's missal from 1942 to see what the Church had to say about the new season. I was reading the introduction to the season of Easter this morning and it struck me that what the Benedictine Monks who put out this missal wrote there as an instruction is as true today as it was yesterday. We may have a
different reaction to the lesson, but the foundation remains the same.

At this point of our history as Catholics, when so much is made of the "old and reverential ways of Mother Church", I decided to translate the short paragraph entitled "Dogmatic Expose: Easter" for your reflection.

"The Church, who, each year renews the memory of the significant events of the life of the Savior through the liturgy so that we can take part in them, celebrates the anniversary of Christ's victory over death at the time of Easter. It is, in the words of the great homilist, Bossuet, 'the core event of all of history. It is towards this event that all history converges in the life and death of Christ. It is the culminating point of the life of the Church in its liturgy.'

"The resurrection of the Savior is the most glorious event of his existence. It is the most explosive proof of His divinity and serves as the foundation of our faith. By right, we have resurrected with Christ. But in fact the force of this mystery operates in and through the lives of the faithful, and especially during the festivities of Easter so that we can pass from sin to grace here and now, and later be born into eternal glory from grace.

"At the Incarnation it is the soul of Jesus that was being born into the divine life through the experience of the beatific vision. At Easter, it is His body which now enters into the joy of the glory of God.

"The Easter Season is an image of heaven, a radiant image of the eternal Easter which is the goal of our entire existence."

(Missel Vesperal-Romain; Dom Gaspar LeFebvre, Benedictin de l'Abbaye de St. Andre, Bruges, Belgique)
(Roman Missal - Vesperal: Dom Gaspar LeFebvre, Benedictine of St. Andrew's Abbey, Bruges, Belgium) Copyright, 1942 My translation from the French