by Father Robert Lauder

I have been thinking about this Easter season column for some time.

When I was studying for the priesthood, one of the priests on the seminary faculty mentioned to us that one difficulty that we might have with preaching after we were ordained would be trying to say something new on an important feast. He was suggesting that there was a danger that each year when an important feast was to be celebrated, we might feel that we had nothing new to say, that we had already expressed our thoughts about the feast in previous years.

I confess that I have not had that problem. Rather a greater challenge for me has been trying to probe and explore more deeply each year the meaning and mystery of the feast. My experience has been that novelty is not as elusive as depth. That has also been my experience in trying to write a weekly column. How many columns have I written about Easter? My guess is about 45.

What words can capture completely the meaning and beauty of Christ’s resurrection and our participation in Christ’s resurrection? Of course, none can express the mystery adequately, but for some reason, two poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J., have been going through my mind during this Easter season. One poem is titled “That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the comfort of the Resurrection,” and the other is titled “No. 34,” sometimes referred to by its first line “As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame.” Both poems are about Christ’s resurrection and our share in Christ’s new life.

Constant Change

In “That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the comfort of the Resurrection,” Hopkins writes in dazzling images about the constant change that happens in nature, at one point comparing nature to a bonfire, and includes human beings in this constantly changing nature. His imagery suggests that we might be tempted to think we are insignificant and unimportant because we are a part of the constant change.

Hopkins writes in “No. 34” that each being does its own thing, speaks itself and presents itself. Then he concludes that the just person speaks Christ.

Certainly the Resurrection of Christ is one of the great mysteries of the Christian faith and perhaps one reason why the two poems have been on my mind during this Easter season is that I subconsciously felt that the poet could express the depth of the mystery better than the rest of us.

However, what I have been thinking of even more than the event of Christ’s Resurrection is our anticipation of that event. I have been thinking about how participation in Christ’s risen life should change the way we think, should influence our consciences and should change the way we live.

Being Silent and Transparent

Reflecting on how we should allow the light of Christ to enlighten us, perhaps by being silent and transparent with Christ, theologian Father Richard Viladesau has written the following:

“Why, then, does the good frequently seem invisible, inaudible, hidden? Why are most Christians not a clear and apparent ‘light’ to the world around us? Perhaps it is because we have not ourselves been fully transformed; our lives are a mixture light and darkness our values are a series of compromises between the beatitudes and worldliness. … Perhaps finally it is because our attainment of transparency to God for others depends upon our own meeting with the Ultimate and seeing life in its perspective; and this means being willing to enter into both the ‘scary’ moments of silence and the joyous moments of ecstasy in their fullest depth, losing ourselves from the habits of noise and superficiality to encounter the God who surrounds and permeates our being.” (“The Word in and out of Season: Homilies for the Sundays of Ordinary Time.” Paulist Press, Mahwah, New Jersey, 1992, p. 29).

Between the poems and Father Viladesau’s insights, I have a great deal to think about this Easter season.

Editor’s note: Father Lauder continues his series on Evelyn Underhill’s book, “The Spiritual Life,” with his fourth installment next week.

Father Robert Lauder is a priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn and a philosophy professor at St. John’s University, Jamaica.