theROCK

The Price of Eggs

The price of eggs is crazy! That was the opening comment made by my sister as we sat around the dinner table contemplating Easter. My sister, who has no children, graciously opens her house each year to a mad-cap day of Easter egg hunts, morbid consumption of candy, and overactive grandchildren who are shaking off their indoor winter doldrums to traipse fresh new spring mud into her house.

This year, we all watched the price of eggs skyrocket and heard or experienced restaurants charging an “egg” fee to bills. Fortunately, the price of eggs have reentered earth’s orbit. We wondered whether people would dye less eggs this year. With eight grandchildren, we are usually into the third dozen before colored dye marks every work area.

What’s with dyeing eggs anyway? (Nothing like a few extra dollars out of your pocket to reassess a life-long tradition.) Easter has always heralded the end of winter; a time for humankind to experience new life, from the daffodils pushing their way up despite our cold weather, to the tulips which in their beauty come and go so quickly. Christianity has absorbed many of the pagan springtime traditions and “repurposed” them as signs of Jesus’ resurrection. The Easter egg is one of them. Eggs have been an ancient symbol of new life. Christianity has revalued this oval wonder to symbolize the resurrection of Jesus; new life, forever. According to some sources, decorating Easter eggs is a tradition dating back to at least the 13th century. One explanation for this custom is that eggs were formerly a forbidden food during Lent, so people would decorate them to mark the end of penance and fasting and eat them on Easter as a celebration.

According to Good Housekeeping magazine, early Christian missionaries dyed the eggs colors to represent different aspects of the Easter story. Yellow represented the resurrection, blue represented love, and red the blood of Christ. Cracking a hard-boiled egg is opening the tomb. I guess the question is, did you dye less eggs this year because of the cost?

It makes me reflect on the cost Jesus paid for our sins. What is the price you would pay for salvation? What response can you offer to a God who paid with his only Son to bring us back to him?

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live in righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed (1Peter 2:24). This Easter, ponder the price Jesus paid and the trivial distractions which we think are so important, such as the price of eggs. Have a blessed Easter!

Soldiers or Lovers

In today’s gospel, Jesus’ disciples return from their experience of sharing the Good News. What should our approach to the outside world be?  Are we meant to go out as Christian soldiers or Catholic lovers?

These last three weeks we have heard in our gospels of the call we all have to be prophets in our non-Christian world. Just as in the time of Jesus, we leave church to face an indifferent or even hostile world. How are we to engage it, as soldiers or lovers? It has been suggested that we must arm ourselves with truth and steady ourselves to the assaults we will endure when we profess our faith in the world. Those supporting this approach use St Paul’s words to the Ephesians, “Therefore put on the full armor of God, that you may resist on the evil day and, having done everything, to hold your ground.” We even call our school students the St. Dominic Knights.

But we are still haunted by, “What would Jesus do?” The power of Christ is love, not the sword. Although our Church history is laden with examples of harming unbelievers, if you accept our first reading, it is the Lord who holds the scales of justice. Our fight against evil is one in which it is Jesus who wars for us. When we go out, we must be secure in our own relationship with God, but the world will not be saved by the sword. The world will be saved by love. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” 
(John 13:35)

He is Not Hear

“He is not here, he has been raised” (Luke 24:6a). Of all the passages in the bible this is one of my two favorites, the other being the exchange between Jesus and the “good thief.” “He is not here” is short, simple, direct . . . and life changing. It is both mysterious and awe inspiring at the same time. These words of Jesus’ absence from the tomb are meant to comfort.

The first proclamation of the Risen Lord is especially consoling to me and I would venture to others who have lost a loved one. For me, she is not here is a recurrent reality that I still grieve over, even though it has been several years. This time of year, coinciding with the brief illness my wife suffered before her death, always brings me to a special place of attention. Some years, clouds and darkness reign and some years, warmth and sunlight permeate my thoughts. This year, as I pondered the paschal mystery, I stopped on, “He is not here.” It is because He is not here that I can live in joy and hope this Easter season.

Jesus conquered death and, in doing this, opened a way for all who grieve, who have etched into their daily lives that he or she is not here, to experience a place of hope and joy. Because “He is not here,” we can live in this world with a sense of destiny. We do not have to worry as to what will happen to us, what is to become of us. Easter is a time when everything both in heaven and on earth cries out with  new life—a new life we have all been granted as children of God.

I don’t know how the season of Lent has been for you but, from wherever you are coming, it is time to put aside anything that keeps you from rejoicing that He is not here. Step out into the bright morning sunlight and feel its warmth. It is a gift from God, that Jesus our savior and our Lord is not here…He has risen.