Death With Life Contended (Easter 2024)

Witness. The word appears a few times in the first reading for Easter Sunday. Here in Hastings, we had the annual ecumenical Procession of Witness – the Way of the Cross – which made its way from St. Clement’s church, up High Street, into our own St. Mary Star of the Sea and then on to All Saints.

To be a witness is not simply something we see with our eyes, not only something we give testimony to in our words, but it is most of all something we experience, a reality into which our entire being is immersed, so that we somehow become the reality that we witness.

I have mixed feelings about the Procession of Witness. It is always good to walk with Deacon Duncan, to see familiar faces in the crowd and this year to walk for the first time with Father Mat and his family. And I have great admiration for all those who give themselves so generously to the process.

But the thing itself embarrasses me and is much too loud for my liking yet, in spite of my dislike, I find myself drawn into the meaning of it, sucked into its vortex. The trauma of it touches into and lays bare my own subconscious trauma, so that by the time we reach the consummation in All Saints, I am worn to a shred by it all.

What a relief it is to arrive in All Saints where words are put aside; the noise and the violence are ended. Only the shuffling of feet, the carrying of the body of Jesus to its place of rest on the altar, this silent garden of His repose. And then the balm of stillness. I close my eyes, prepared to remain for as long as is necessary.

“Death with life contended: combat strangely ended!” (Easter Sequence) 

And then, into the silence comes the sound that I love so dearly – the ringing of our own Angelus bell. The perfect timing of it, as if God Himself were speaking, telling the Good News that is present. The Angel of God announcing something new, as happened in the Annunciation of the conception of Jesus and again at His birth.

How often this has happened in my own life that, when I have been meditating on the sufferings of Christ – either in the Rosary or in some other way – that the Angelus bell has rung. The most profound of Sorrows being kissed by the most exalted of Joys. This is where new life is born. This is where death comes back to life. This is where Jesus rises. And this is our promise of resurrection. “

But, as the old hymn goes, if you will not bear the Cross, you can’t wear the Crown. The Cross that seeps into our ordinary lives; the Cross that calls for our surrender to the Will of the Father as Jesus did, the surrender that endures when we have put all our questions behind us.

Once again for me, as happened in the week leading up to Christmas, I found myself somewhat unable for all that was asked of me. A chest infection stalled me, crept into my throat and ear, and left me totally at the Mercy of God and dependent on Him.

And it turned out to be the best state to be in as we went through the liturgies of the Paschal Triduum – Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday – an intense immersion into the history, the mystery and the music of our salvation culminating in Jesus, so utterly fulfilling.

There is such joy in baptizing and confirming adults during the Easter Vigil, the nobility of their witness, the bond of community forged between us through the RCIA classes of the winter. And the joy of children gathered around my feet on Easter Sunday morning.

And I am tired of course and thinking I deserve a good rest, but God has other ideas, other plans than the ones I have made, and He has whittled my days of rest down to just a few. I made a faint complaint but was reminded, as if by St. Vincent Pallotti himself, “in heaven we shall rest.”

Last word goes to one of my favourite teachers, Henri Nouwen, whose words on joy and sorrow have been with me through this Paschal time:

“When we speak about celebration we tend rather easily to bring to mind happy, pleasant, gay festivities in which we can forget for a while the hardships of life and immerse ourselves in an atmosphere of music, dance, drinks, laughter, and a lot of cozy small talk. But celebration in the Christian sense has very little to do with this. Celebration is only possible through the deep realization that life and death are never found completely separate. Celebration can only really come about where fear and love, joy and sorrow, tears and smiles can exist together. Celebration is the acceptance of life in a constantly increasing awareness of its preciousness. And life is precious not only because it can be seen, touched, and tasted, but also because it will be gone one day. When we celebrate a wedding, we celebrate a union as well as a departure; when we celebrate death we celebrate lost friendship as well as gained liberty. There can be tears after weddings and smiles after funerals. We can indeed make our sorrows, just as much as our joys, a part of our celebration of life in the deep reality that life and death are not opponents but do, in fact, kiss each other at every moment of our existence.”  (Henri Nouwen)