Monday \u00a0April 17
\n\u201cBecause the Holy Ghost over the bent
\nWorld broods\u201d<\/p>\n
When I was a child, on what Catholics call\u00a0\u201cHoly Saturday,\u201d \u00a0the big deal was that the\u00a0tight rules of Lent unwound themselves\u00a0and you could eat candy again. \u00a0 \u00a0In 1927, Cecil B DeMille released his silent-film blockbuster\u00a0\u201cThe King of Kings.\u201d \u00a0Wikipedia describes DeMille\u2019s treatment of Easter as follows: \u00a0\u201cOn the third day, he rises from the dead as promised. To emphasize the importance of the resurrection, this scene from an otherwise black and white film is shot in color. Jesus goes to the Apostles and tells them to spread his message to the world. He tells them ‘I am with you always\u201d\u00a0as the scene shifts to a modern city to show that Jesus still watches over his followers.\u201d \u00a0 Color film, a dazzling wonderment. \u00a0I wasn\u2019t there in 1927 but it\u2019s easy to imagine that surprise burst of color and the anachronistic leap from the death of Jesus into a modern city, still two years away from 1929\u2019s\u00a0\u2018Black Friday,\u2019\u00a0as the media parallel of us kids getting to eat candy again. \u00a0\u201cYippee! \u00a0Jesus wins and our troubles are over.\u201d<\/p>\n
Easter joy, though, may be more demanding than Lent\u2019s\u00a0fasting and\u00a0both Lent and the Easter Season\u2019s 40 days depend on a habit of paying attention to beauty side by side with the world\u2019s violence and its burden of grief. \u00a0The women and men who meet a risen Jesus in the gospels are in shock, incapacitated by\u00a0what torture has done to the body of Jesus while he was executed. \u00a0 In shock with a level of grief that makes joy seem impossible. \u00a0No one wanted to hear that Jesus rose; \u00a0check out the handful of accounts of encounters with him. \u00a0In every case, those women and men had to surrender their exhausted and battered hopes, had to begin to imagine that Jesus Risen called them into joy about the whole human condition, violence and beauty together.<\/p>\n
Easter is a lot like Lent. \u00a0It\u2019s about a habit of paying attention to the whole world\u2019s realities, trusting that out of the wounds and grief, you can risk delight and even playful humor. \u00a0 My fellow Jesuit, Justin Kelly, with whom I and our small group of Sunday worshipers celebrated Saturday\u2019s Easter Vigil, reminded us, one might say, that The Resurrection is for grown-ups and their children, that we citizens of 2017 are asked to love the whole human package, to risk paying attention to beauty without avoiding the wounds. \u00a0Justin reached into where I live when he ended his homily by reciting one of the great Easter poems of our tradition, \u00a0Gerard Manley Hopkin\u2019s\u00a0\u201cGod\u2019s Grandeur.\u201d \u00a0Lots of exquisite images, of a battered world and the improbable beauty of the world\u2019s rebirth.<\/p>\n
Best to read Hopkins when you are not in a hurry, \u00a0the\u00a0imagery is fine-tuned and then some.<\/p>\n
This is day two of the Easter Season and the brilliant sun, crisp breezy air, leaves and flowers bursting. \u00a0\u201cGet used to beauty,\u201d they seem to say, \u00a0Risk it.<\/p>\n
Have a blest week.<\/p>\n
john sj<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s Post: \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cGod\u2019s Grandeur\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n The world is charged with the grandeur of God. And for all this, nature is never spent; Gerard Manley Hopkins \u00a028 July 1844 \u2013 8 June, 1889<\/p>\n <\/p>\n p.s. I was ready to send out today\u2019s post when I read an email from one of the Work Day\/Hard time list\u2019s 2285 members, a searing account by a passionate teacher to just how hard it is to find hope when you look around the world of the whole human condition. \u00a0 I am posting it without revealing the author\u2019s name. \u00a0 What s\/he wrote this morning just belongs in this post.<\/p>\n Dear John,<\/p>\n I just read the poem from Thursday and wanted to shout – but what about the parents who do appear to give up their children? I have a young man (19 years old) who is certified with ASD who spent Easter under a bridge. I’ve known him for 2 years and have never met a family member. Wednesday was the last time I saw him and I spent much time and many hours thinking and praying for his protection. He’s been homeless since February. He’s been following the rotating shelter that goes from church to church, but found it was moving too far away from school. When I saw him last, he asked if someone could bring him a sleeping bag – that would make the rock a little easier to deal with. What do you do when the picture in your head is a young person, dirty, hungry, and alone?<\/p>\n When I watch TV and the heart wrenching music and ad want me to care about a lost or abused puppy when I know teenagers who are lost and abused.<\/p>\n It’s hard to think about forcing a child to learn a foreign language or algebra II when they haven’t eaten a real meal in several days and they don’t have a bed to sleep in.<\/p>\n It’s hard to thoroughly enjoy feasting at Easter when the smell of the wood fire that kept a student warm the night before is still fresh in one’s memory.<\/p>\n The worst part is offering that teen a ride, let alone a warm bed and a roof, could put my job in jeopardy. I wail at the society that would apparently throw this child away.<\/p>\n Sometimes I feel it is easier to look globally and see the “big picture” then look really close at hand and see the details. I’m looking for the answers to the question, in the land of the free and the home of the brave, when we fight for the protection of the others, how can we be creating our own “refugees”? Monday \u00a0April 17 \u201cBecause the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods\u201d When I was a child, on what Catholics call\u00a0\u201cHoly Saturday,\u201d \u00a0the big deal was that the\u00a0tight rules of Lent unwound themselves\u00a0and you could eat candy again. \u00a0 \u00a0In … Continue reading
\nIt will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
\nIt gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
\nCrushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
\nGenerations have trod, have trod, have trod;
\nAnd all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
\nAnd wears man\u2019s smudge and shares man\u2019s smell: the soil
\nIs bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.<\/p>\n
\nThere lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
\nAnd though the last lights off the black West went
\nOh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs \u2014
\nBecause the Holy Ghost over the bent
\nWorld broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.<\/p>\n
\n—
\nThanks,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"