Lent 2024: Easter Sunday

Happy Easter. And finally, we can say Alleluia again! One word says it all.

St John looked into the empty tomb and let Peter, his companion whom he had outrun to get there, go in first. Peter, the good but less subtle part of us. Then John, the lover in us, went in and ‘he saw and he believed’.

As I have been writing these reflections during Lent I have had an invisible companion, no doubt part of myself, who is not merely a non-believer but who does not just ‘believe’ either. This is an important part of ourselves to befriend and learn from because its questioning curiosity gives space for faith to grow and teach us things we never dreamed of before. We become enthusiastically inauthentic if we just jump up and down saying we ‘believe’. Anyway, the word we translate as ‘believe’ has much more content and outreach of meaning – to have faith in, to be persuaded, to trust. The English word ‘believe’ grows from the word ‘love’.

Something bursts today in humanity’s journey into consciousness, long imagined and much hoped-for. It is not like the working out of a solution to a maths problem or even like finishing a work we have been long engaged on. It is more like the bursting of a seed or the opening of a flower. It can best be recognised if we allow it, moment by moment, to persuade us that it understands us.

‘He comes to us hidden and salvation consists in our recognising him,’ Simone Weil said. 

It is like seeing what makes a joke funny or why a pun can both please and irritate us. We don’t have to try too hard, just wait for the penny to drop. Today is just the beginning and if the beginning is so good imagine what the rest will be like.

I hope these Lent Reflections have been of some service for you during our long trek. I would like to thank the great team, led by Leonardo, who got them distributed and very specially the translators who patiently (I think) put up with some last-minute deliveries and for their very generous gift of time and wonderful talent.

One word says it all.