#noEnigma

Thank you, Brian, for voicing the #Enigma of a personal Easter Celebration, in “Well, may I speak for myself?”  And to return the favor, “Well, may I speak for myself?” on the Easter celebration to you in #noEnigma.

I heard a wonderful explanation of #noEnigma  that I and hopefully many experienced this Easter. The explanation was from Dr. Gavin Ashenden who is now a Catholic layman but was once Chaplain to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth. He quoted an Orthodox saying that our goal is to stand before the Real God with our own Real Self with the mind in the heart not the other way around. And getting the mind into the heart is no easy thing, he continued. Rationality in our culture has always put the brain first. And Anglicanism actually reverses the heart before the mind as a theological principle. (Dare I say a Catholic principle also?)

From your experience with teaching First Communion to inner-city kids, it seems your heart has been subsumed by your mind in “my theology degree was silenced for the moment as I felt the pang of a question that confounds believers.”

Food for my heart for Easter is watching the silent epic film The King of Kings by Cecile B. De Mille (1927). Yes, a production from 95 years ago. I watch it on my computer (You Tube) where I can click on it for 10-15 minute intervals and meditate on the “text”.  According to this interpretation, Mary Magdalene was a courtesan who vowed to extricate Judas from his attachment to Jesus. A scene of Jesus drawing the spirits of the seven deadly sins from Magdalene in contrast prepares the heart for Penance.  Was the context of Judas blindness and betrayal that he was a courterier in King Herod’s Court and the contrast between Jesus’ not using his power in a worldly kingdom for good as Herod used his for evil?

Let me skip over all the powerful insights in the film of the last weeks of Jesus life to Easter Sunday. The black and white film turns into a burnt sienna golden hue when the stone closing the tomb begins to illumine the appearance of the Risen Christ. See the Secret Easter Garden revealed in harmony with the notion of the unprofaned Original Garden of Paradise. It warms our heart. It enflames our HOPE. We have been SAVED.

There are touching scenes of Jesus visiting the Apostles and the Ascension. My heart swells with awe at its power. .

More food for my heart was the Holy Week Liturgy. You also said, Brian, that “Our bodily nature calls out for something more tangible than his sacramental presence.”  For me, my heart was uplifted by the RITE of our Catholic religion which united the real presence of God in its sacred signs. Candles, incense, bells, fire, servers as around the throne of God, holy water, laying of the hands, holy chrism. Together they were a Jacob’s ladder. “The heavens are the heavens of God, and the earth is given to human beings’–that is, to make of the earth a heaven.”Gen 28:10-21

When you say but it is clear that He does not need us, let me share with you this food for the heart—a hymn from my Lenten thoughts:

I love this hymn Amazing Love by Charles Wesley published in 1738 because the enormity of God dying for me alone can be so empowering and humbling and yet evasive when I fail to ponder adequately this Love in gratitude and wonder.

Refrain:
Amazing love! How can it be
That thou, my Lord, shouldst die for me?

And can it be that I should gain
An int'rest in the Savior's blood!
Died he for me? who caused his pain!
For me? who him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be
That thou, my Lord, shouldst die for me?

Refrain:
Amazing love! How can it be
That thou, my Lord, shouldst die for me?

'Tis myst'ry all: the Immortal dies!
Who can explore his strange design?
In vain the firstborn seraph tries
To sound the depths of love divine.
'Tis mercy all! Let earth adore;
Let angel minds inquire no more.

Refrain:
Amazing love! How can it be
That thou, my Lord, shouldst die for me?
 
He left his Father's throne above,
So free, so infinite his grace,
Emptied himself of all but love,
And bled for Adam's helpless race.
'Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me!

Refrain:
Amazing love! How can it be
That thou, my Lord, shouldst die for me?
 
Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature's night;
Thine eye diffused a quick'ning ray;
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed thee.

Refrain:
Amazing love! How can it be
That thou, my Lord, shouldst die for me?
 
No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in him, is mine;
Alive in Him, my living Head,
And clothed in righteousness divine,
Bold I approach the eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own.

Refrain:
Amazing love! How can it be
That thou, my Lord, shouldst die for me?

EASTER!!!! For YOU!!! And for ME!!!!!

You also say, Brian, “If we Christians have failed to make Easter attractive on its own terms, it’s really not our fault.” We are called daily to choose “God” or “Man”(Whittaker Chambers).  When we choose “God”, Easter is attractive on its own terms; when we choose “Man”, Easter is an unending extension of this life.

Quite by what I thought was an accident (no accident or coincidence with God), I recently saw The Secret Garden (1949).When the children in it grew in virtue and loved and cared for and nurtured each other, the dead garden in this black and white film turned to the most amazing color transformation. Easter is #noEnigma from the Original Garden –the Sacred Profaned; to the Easter Garden—Redemption by Love; to the Garden of God Rev. 2:1-11.  Keep a Secret Garden of love, virtue and service growing in your heart and your mind will serve it.