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Home  Quiet Space Easter Archive Easter Mystery
I had the privilege of teaching Pre-Kindergarten children for a number of years. In this ministry I knew that I stood on holy ground, for children are impressionable , and we leave footprints on their lives that some times last for ever.
For ten years I welcomed children to their first formal education
experience and the personality of each of those classes is still etched
in my memory. I recall the timid children, the talkers, the restless
few and the strong extroverts. I remember how these four year olds
searched for God with me and how God's presence was so gently
manifested in them; at times in laughter, in moments of tears, in high
excited energy or a in a gentle smile. For children, with active
imaginations, Jesus
is always a friend, someone they can turn to for
solace when life gets overwhelming.
During the Lenten season, with the telling of the Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy
Saturday journey, the children grappled with trying to understand why Jesus had to die and
hated the thoughts of blood! When given the assurance that Jesus came
back from the dead in the resurrection, they seemed so relieved. Just
as we adults live the Paschal Mystery of Christ's life, death,
Ascension and Pentecost, likewise children live this transforming
mystery in a very real way and understand it deeply. Children are no
strangers to disappointment, anxiety and pain, and on the other side of
these they too welcome resolution, healing and wellness.
I had a four year old student, who made a lasting impression on me in
his ability to live life fully, and in contrast, to embrace pain, to
see his body break down in disease, and to live in hope of being
transformed in the Resurrection. Allow me to introduce Wilfred.
Little did I know the first day I met Wilfred that his presence would
teach me one of the important lessons about life, that of letting go
and trusting. Wilfred was an active boy; articulate, energetic,
intelligent, sociable, open to discovering some thing new every day.
One morning I spoke with his mother about his behavior and that gave us
a relationship that endures to this day because of all that would take
place after that first encounter. As a kindergarten child, Wilfred was
diagnosed with cancer, which would claim his life in a matter of a few
years. Walking the journey with him to death was a privilege, a
learning and a growth-filled experience all in one. I had never been at
the bed side of a dying child before, my faith was stretched and yet I
marveled at how Wilfred kept his faith, hope and trust in God. His
illness challenged my adult understanding of suffering, death and
transformation. I searched to find words to talk about heaven, seeing
God face to face, and the communion of Saints.
However, Wilfred understood these eternal truths so well.. He loved to
hear stories from the Scriptures, his favorite passage was Luke18: 16
“let the little Children come to me”. He understood the Paschal Mystery
of Christ's life, death and resurrection with a maturity beyond his
years. He had a child's innocent faith and an adult's strong
conviction.
Gradually, Wilfred's terminal disease wasted his body, while he clung
to life. His pain, eased slightly by morphine, brought him closer to
death. Each day his family and close friends sat by his bed, watching
helplessly while he suffered. Finally, on the Tuesday of Holy Week that
year, I said to Wilfred, would you want to be finished with all this
pain? Why don't we ask God to come and bring you to heaven? “Yes”, he
said energetically, lets pray for Jesus to come and ask him to take
care of my family and friends too. We prayed the final words from the
book of Revelation 22: 20 “Come, Lord Jesus Come”. He then expressed a
desire to be in heaven for Easter, as that is the day Jesus rose, he
said. Wilfred died in the early hours of Holy Saturday, teaching me an
important truth-a truth about letting go and trusting in God to hear
our prayers.
My living of the Paschal Mystery that Easter was intense with sorrow and grief at his passing,
yet sharpened in hope and the promise of new life. For all of us,
living the Paschal Mystery of life, death, resurrection, ascension and
new beginning is not always in the midst of physical death, but more
often in the round of our daily lives. “Unless a grain of wheat falls
into the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it
dies it yields a harvest” (John 12:24).
These words of Jesus tell of the rhythm of the paschal mystery. This is
not something that you undergo just once at the moment of death, it is
something that we under go daily, in every aspect of life. In entering
fully into the death of a loved one, we embrace the Paschal Mystery in
a real way; we are asked to take this experience and look for the same
pattern in each and every event in our lives. For example, when
children leave home and there is an empty nest syndrome, when a new
baby arrives and the family pattern changes, or when illness weakens
you and your lose your accustomed independence. Situations such as
these that change our lives patterns, plunging us straight into the
Paschal Mystery.
One author, Ronald Rolheiser, in his wonderful book, The Holy Longing,
encourages all to “Name your deaths” which corresponds to Good Friday
“Claim your births” which corresponds to Easter Sunday. “Grieve what
you have lost and adjust to the new reality, letting it ascend and give
you a blessing” which corresponds to Ascension. “Accept the spirit of
the life that you are already living” which corresponds with Pentecost.
In an act of surrender, grace moves us through the process of naming, claiming, grieving and
accepting our new reality, this also marks the start of a deeper encounter with the Paschal
Mystery.
We can distinguish between terminal death and paschal death. Each is connected to
the other and yet both are different. Terminal death is a death that
ends life and ends possibilities. Paschal death, is a death that, while
ending one kind of life, opens the person undergoing it to receive a
deeper and richer form of life. The image of the grain of wheat falling
into the ground and dying so as to produce new life is an image of
paschal death. May we be graced with each of the death experiences we
encounter, and be no stranger to the pain that is a part of life, may
our suffering and that of others soften our hearts and prepare us to
enter Easter joy, Resurrection, Ascension and Pentecost.
Sr. Fionnuala Quinn, O.P.
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