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When
the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and
Salome
bought spices so that they might go and anoint Jesus. Very
early when the sun had risen, on the
first day of the week, they came to the tomb. They
were saying to one another, “Who will
roll back the stone for us
from the entrance to the tomb?” When
they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back; it was
very
large. On entering
the tomb they saw a
young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a white robe, and they
were
utterly amazed. He
said to them, “Do not
be amazed! You seek
Jesus of Nazareth,
the crucified. He
has been raised; he is
not here. Behold,
the place where they
laid him. But go
and tell his disciples
and Peter, ‘He is going before you to Galilee; there you will
see him, as he
told you.’’’ Then they went
out and fled
from the tomb, seized with trembling and bewilderment. They
said nothing to anyone, for they were
afraid.
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Despair
is portrayed in this session of "Harry Potter and the Chamber of
Secrets." As we come to know Harry and his friends and enemies, it
seems as though
Hogwarts will be in the hands of evil, that spiders will feast on the
flesh of the heroes, and that the heroes will be neutralized. It
could lead to total despair. But there is hope. With Ron's
family car as a symbol of the hope that Harry and Ron need, the despair
begins to lift.
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When
Mark’s Gospel is read at Easter
time in the Christian liturgy, the last verse is left out of the
reading,
probably because it is embarrassing. The
verse is upsetting because it relates that the women who came to the
tomb did
not do what the young man from God said: “Then they went out
and fled from the
tomb, seized with trembling and bewilderment. They
said nothing to anyone, for they were
afraid.”
There is a further problem. We know from the study of Scripture that verse 8 was the last verse of the Gospel; the other Resurrection appearances in Mark’s Gospel were added at a later date. The overall conclusion can be worded this way: the reaction to the Resurrection of Jesus—the most important event of faith that we have—the reaction by the first Christians was disobedience of what God wanted. They were afraid; they had no hope. Luckily, for what was to become the Christian world, the women and the first Christians soon overcame their fear, and began to fearlessly preach the Gospel. Hope is the virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life for our happiness, placing our trust in Jesus’ promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit. It is the virtue of never giving up because in the end we know that we will win, even if we die. Given the close-to-despair feeling of much of our world, our world desperately needs Christian hope. We must understand that the problems that overtake us can never overtake us completely. We must adopt the attitude of the early Christians and say: yes, it may look bad, but we will win! Somehow, we will win! |
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THOUGHT
Give your own understanding of the meaning of Christian hope. PRAYER Good and
gracious God, the world we live in is often a world devoid of all hope
because
of the problems that confront us. Help
us listen completely to your Son so that we can be prepared to face our
complicated world with hope. Be
with us,
we pray.
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©2007 Capuchin
Province of Mid-America
Fr. Mike Scully is a member of the Capuchin Province of Mid-America |
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