We had another visitor to our prayer group on Tuesday evening. Teresa came, still wearing the beautiful white suit she had worn earlier in the day for her husband’s funeral. She came to end the day with Vespers. She came to talk about her husband, her life, her faith. She came because of her faith in the Resurrection. She came to let God wrap her ever so gently at the end of a day that marked a turn in the road which is her path of life.
Several of us in our prayer group are widows—I from more than twenty years ago, others more recently. As I listened and loved Teresa before the Lord, I remembered the day of my husband’s funeral. There is a silence that comes when the rituals are finished and one goes home to sleep alone. I remembered a line from an Emily Dickinson poem, “Folding love away.” That was what Teresa was doing with us: folding love away.
Today our reading from Acts is the story of Stephen’s death. I am wondering about his wife. We were introduced to Stephen on Saturday. He was one of the first seven deacons chosen because he was “filled with the Spirit and wisdom” to serve the Christian community in practical matters. Among these matters was care of widows.
What was it like for Stephen’s widow? Did she anticipate his death when she heard him say to the scribes, elders, and people, “You stiff-necked people….you always oppose the Holy Spirit?” We think and pray often about the Blessed Virgin’s Way of the Cross and experience on Good Friday. What was the experience of Stephen’s family as they watched him become the first Christian martyr? St. Luke says Stephen had a vision as he gave himself up, “I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” Did his family see that vision, too? Did his widow find comfort in it?
Thoughts of Stephen’s widow and of Teresa lead me to consider what living in the context of the Resurrection means.
Teresa came to widowhood in the context of 2000 years of faith history in the truth of the resurrection. She came, rich in that faith, yearning for the comfort of it, expressing the hope of it, resting in the community of it. But this heritage of faith—might it lead us to miss its meaning?
How much do I take the resurrection for granted without probing into the depths of what it means?
Teresa has a clear, deliberate, powerful hope. So did Stephen. Do I?
When Christ rose from the dead, it changed EVERYTHING FOREVER. Until Christ rose from the dead there might have been hope of eternal life, but there was no evidence to show it could become reality. Now Jesus was a path to it. Eternal life became a reality which could be accessed through faith.
It was reality for Stephen and for his widow. It is reality for Teresa and for her husband. It is reality for me.
This Easter season, day by day I am pondering what that reality means. Beyond the comfort of expectation of seeing loved ones again, beyond whatever picture of heaven I carry, there is the emerging seedling in my soul of being so loved by God that He found a way to enable me to be immersed in His goodness, His life of love within the Trinity, His joy, His light, His LIFE—now, today….and forever.
I’ve been reading a Cantalamessa essay this week on the Trinity. It speaks of the JOY of the Trinity, which is the JOY of God. He makes the point that in our 20th century efforts to make sense of Auschwitz and other great evils, theologians began to talk much about the sorrow of God. That sorrow we experience on Good Friday. I experience it every time I pray in front of an abortion clinic and often when I hear the evening news.
Within our Catholic faith, however, there is also a vibrant theology of the JOY of God. That joy comes from living a life of love. This life of love is not only our love for each other; it is also participating in God’s life of love within Himself—God’s experience of Love which is living within the Trinity. As we enter into God’s Trinitarian joy, we bring God’s inherent joy into our ordinary lives with family, friends, and prayer groups.
Cantalamessa quotes St. Hiliary of Poitiers and St. Augustine, describing the great joy that must be in the Trinity, when Father loves Son and Son loves Father—and the love between them which is the Holy Spirit. He goes on to say, “Joy and sorrow are intermingled on many occasions in life…They are not simply juxtaposed, one next to each other, but they are within one another. There is a joy that comes precisely from sorrow, from suffering for a loved one—the joy of sacrifice done out of love. This was the kind of joy Christ had in the depths of his soul on the cross, and this is the kind of joy the Trinity has in its relation to the human beings it has created.”
I want to grow in appreciation for this resurrection joy.
This Easter the dawn in my soul is the dawn of seeing how the Resurrection is far, far more than hope of heaven and comfort for grief. It is what makes God’s invitation to join His family an invitation to live in the bosom of the Love which is the life of the Trinity. This bosom of love is possible in eternal life. It is also possible now. The Resurrection is God’s gift to us for both now and forever.
Pope Francis has just issued his third major document, “The Joy of Love.” I will download and begin to read it tomorrow. I hope and trust it will help me better understand and appreciate the mix of human and divine love. I can express my faith in the Resurrection in how I live “the joy of Love” in my family.
Stephen’s martyrdom left a widow in the context of the Church’s care of widows—among the least of these in New Testament times. The privilege of sitting with, praying with, laughing and crying with Teresa last week gave joy to us who spent time with her. The Church still cares for widows. I can express my faith in the Resurrection by being a part of that caring.
A primary way I can live in the Resurrection is through the Eucharist. Christ is with us in Eucharist because He arose. Today’s Gospel says, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, whoever believes in me will never thirst.” When I receive the Eucharist with understanding, I am expressing my faith in the Resurrection.
I do hunger. I do thirst. For God. For love. So I am not fully living in the Joy of the Resurrection, the Joy of the Gospel, the Joy of Love. Not yet. Help me, Lord!
Prayer:
St. Stephen, as we again hear your story, be with us today. Be with all whose lives are in danger of martyrdom and with all their families. Be with Christian communities, that we may always be ready to be with those who mourn. Be with Teresa and all new widows. Comfort them with your great gift of faith. Inspire their families, friends, and communities to sit with them and provide for their needs.
My God: Father, Son, Holy Spirit: Enfold me through faith more and more into Your Love. Give me gifts to appreciate the wonder of Christ’s Resurrection, the hope of my own resurrection, and the joy of living within Your Trinitarian Love. May Pope Francis’ efforts to communicate that love through the Church and through us ordinary Christians be blessed. Bring us through our families, bring us through our griefs and struggles—all of us—closer and closer to the bosoms of Your Love: Eucharist and Trinity.
Cantalamessa quote from “Contemplating the Trinity to Overcome the Great Unhappiness of the World” in Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM CAP, Contemplating the Trinity: The Path to Abundant Christian Life, trans by Marsha Daigle-Williamson, (Frederick, MD: Word Among Us Press, 2007), p 31.)
Link to Today’s Readings: Acts 7:51-8:1a, from Psalm 31, John 6:30-35
