The Notebook
Fr Vincent Sherlock
The Lent has passed and hopefully it treated you well. Looking back we might well identify moments of great grace and moments of failure but, combined, they are the story of Lent and the pathway to where we now gather.
Easter Sunday can be unfairly seen as the poor relation of Christmas Day. There are few, if any, presents and no tinsel or decorated trees. It’s a day rooted in one truth – an empty tomb. It is truly the day that gives hope but, unlike the reality of presents beneath the Christmas tree, this hope has to be believed in, searched for and reflected upon.
I had great admiration for Archbishop Joe Cassidy – not least because he was ordained a priest of my home diocese. He was a wonderful teller of story and a truly gifted man of words. He spoke from the local and reached the universal in a style that was truly his own but clearly recognised as a gift from God. I’m thinking of him today and of a homily I’m told he once preached in Loughrea. The source is good!
He spoke one Easter Sunday morning about his native Charlestown, Co. Mayo. Telling the gathered congregation about his childhood days and love of the cinema, he spoke of what the escape to the big screen, with its cowboys and indians, afforded him and his friends. Afforded! “It wasn’t,” he told them, “always easy to afford the price of the admission ticket,” and one way you gathered the means to pay was in the returning of jam jars to the local shops.
Tuppence
A penny was earned for each pound jar and tuppence for each two-pound jar returned. Finding himself tuppence short, he scoured the place for a jar and found one. Alas it was in his mother’s kitchen cupboard and was nearly half full. Taking it in his hands, realising that a quick wash and trip to the shop would have meant entry to the cinema, he pondered the moment and found himself returning the jar to its shelf in his mother’s kitchen.
“I realised,” he told the Loughrea congregation, “the jam jar was no use to me unless it was empty.” A pause…I wasn’t there but I can see the twinkle – maybe even the tears in his eyes – as he looked to those looking to him for a word on that Easter Day, and brought his message home: “And neither is the tomb.”
That’s what the women found that Easter Day. They had wondered about the stone, that large stone that sealed the entrance to the tomb.
It stood in the way of them doing what time denied them on Friday evening and it worried them. On arriving, the stone was already rolled away. The admission price was covered. We’re not a tuppence short.
The tomb IS empty.
ALPHA AND OMEGA
Nearly eight years ago I visited my brother and his family on New Year’s Eve. I called to the house after 11.30pm, intending to spend the midnight hour there and head for home. All went to plan except I did not come home alone. My brother ‘gifted’ me with a Doberman pup. I decided to call him ‘Alpha’ in honour of the year’s new beginning.
Next day, as he curled up in a small box beside me, I looked at him and – in fairness – loved him but hadn’t a clue what to do with him. I went to the only source I knew – I’d like to say God in prayer but it was actually Google! YouTube, video after video, assured me I had a friend for life but that if I wanted the relationship to be a good one, I must – no questions asked or exceptions allowed – establish myself as the ‘alpha’ in the relationship. I recognised my ‘omega’. I seldom trace the Pascal Candle now without pausing for a moment on those symbols!
Stations of the Cross
If time allows, take a look at the Stations of the Cross in your local church. Sometimes it can be good to pick one or a few that might have a particular relevance on a given day. For example, if life isn’t fully going to plan, maybe take a look at ‘The Second Fall’ – seek strength for the finding of feet. If there’s a bit of tension in the family, the fourth, where Jesus meets his mother, might have something to offer by way of where we seek guidance. If there’s any tendency in us to be harsh in word, maybe the first, where Jesus is condemned, might remind us of the power of words and the hurt they can cause if thrown away lightly.