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Life Ways Resurrection and the
Gift of Fidelity It’s darkest just before dawn. Standing on the threshold of the small cottage, Mary of Magdalena peered into the blackness outside. She strained her ears, commanding them to catch the faint rustle of approaching figures, but her efforts were greeted only with silence. What could be keeping them? The others were to have met her here by now; together they had planned to set out for the tomb. Mary felt the surgings of a hollow, helpless frustration--the kind experienced when one’s own options have been narrowed down to one. All she could do was wait. Her chest constricted painfully and a heavy sigh escaped her. It had been a long Sabbath. It seemed to Mary that she had wept enough for a lifetime of weeping. Images of the previous Friday afternoon kept flashing through her mind, over and over again. She would not have believed it could have happened--it might all have been a terrible nightmare or a mistake--except...She closed her eyes. After all, she had been there. The One who was the most gentle, the most innocent--she had seen him. She had watched his breathing become increasingly labored, then impossible, as spasms wracked his body. She had heard his cracked voice utter words of forgiveness and concern for others, of petition to his Father. She had touched the lifeless, broken form after it had been taken down from the hateful cross. Through it all she had stood there--at the side of his all-pure mother--because it had been where she belonged. Because she had wanted to be there, offering him every ounce of the love spilling from her heart. Because, in spite of the pain and the horror of it all, it was right that she, too, had been with him at the end. As black lifted into the dark-bluish haze of early morning, Mary could suddenly make out the slow, silent forms of Joanna and the other women. Relief washed over her. Drawing the veil at her shoulders hastily over her head, and grabbing the pottery jar from the edge of the rickety table, she went out to meet the small group. They were quiet as they made their way to the burial grounds, each woman sunken in her own thoughts, each thought centered on the Master. This would be their last act of service for him, and they would take great pains with it. The body had been hastily wrapped; there hadn’t even been time for a proper washing. Now they would be able to give unhurried, loving attention to him. And in performing those last humble tasks for her Lord, Mary knew she would experience a satisfying peace. She tasted bitter sorrow now, and aching aloneness, but she knew that the peace she had found in him would remain with her. He was gone, but his spirit would live on in all of them. Jesus had suffered terribly, unjustly, but he was now with his Father--and nothing could take that away. They were nearing their destination. Dawn was just breaking, and it was unsurpassably beautiful, lighting the whole sky with streaks of fire. Mary gazed in wonder, it seemed so uncompromising and full of promise. Not like an ending at all, but like the beginning of something grand, something definitely hopeful... Saint John’s account of the resurrection contains one of the most tender scenes described in the Gospels; the first recorded appearance of the Risen Lord to a distraught Mary Magdalen. The women who have come to prepare the body for burial are shocked to discover that Jesus "has been taken from the tomb" (John 20:2). Mary flies to report the crisis to Peter and John. Then in anguish, not quite knowing where to go or what to do, she instinctively returns to the spot where the Lord’s body was "stolen." And there she encounters the glorified Master, whom she fails to recognize until she hears his loving tone--which her heart would know anywhere--address her softly and simply by name: "Mary." The significance of the Lord’s appearing to Mary is underscored by a certain sense that this privilege was shown her as reward for a faithful love. In being present to the Master during his passion and death, Mary and the other women exhibit a fidelity unparalleled by the Lord’s disciples and other followers, a fidelity patterned after--as well as directly resulting from--the Divine Fidelity. After all, faithfulness, like all other gifts, is primarily a manifestation of the Lord’s favor to us, a favor to be received in humility. We don’t acquire faithfulness simply by exerting our will, by relying on our own force. It is richly granted to those who ask for it and who are willing to wait with devoted patience. God’s faithfulness toward us is the base upon which our own fidelity must begin and grow. It’s a solid base, for his faithful love is the one constant in which we can absolutely trust. Life can be grueling and exhilarating, unexpected and monotonous (sometimes all within an incredibly short span!), yet our call is not so much to weather the "changing seasons" of our life as it is to anchor ourselves in the eternal springtime of God’s fidelity. How often his love alone convinces us to keep on trying when we would rather quit, to keep on smiling when we would rather wail, to keep on loving when we would rather pin a "Don’t mess with me" sign on our backs. Few of us will be called to witness fidelity in an extraordinary degree--and yet, the truest beauty of fidelity is seen in the small "yeses" that make up our daily response to God. Often through the tedious demands of life, responsibilities we have adopted, relationships we have formed, we are challenged to give our presence and attention to others, and, through them, to God. Every "yes" is an occasion to grow in faithfulness, imaging God in a world too often self-satisfied and self-directed. Commitment, fidelity, trust--they aren’t exactly the most prevalent words in our language today. For some persons, they conjure up images that are labeled old-fashioned at best and irrelevant at worst. Perhaps that’s so partly because fidelity implies a certain "loss" to us. The loss is realized through sacrifice and real pain, a lifetime of giving and failing and trying again as spouses, parents, friends and job holders. What few of us realize, however, is that it is precisely the pain, the "loss" that makes the gift so valuable to others as well as to ourselves. Through divine mystery, our day-by-day self-giving is joined with the gift Jesus offered of himself to the Father. Thus, in a very real way, our lives of faithfulness are ever-renewed celebrations of the resurrection of Jesus within us. By our determination--even at severest personal cost--to live up to our commitments, to not shrink from our daily duties, we are witnessing to the glory of the risen Savior in our families, at our places of work, in our dealings with whomever we meet. While fidelity is a grace of God, it is also most certainly the fruit of prayerful living. The more we are able to clear space for God in the middle of our hectic routines, the easier will all our priorities--God, self and others--fall into proper perspective. In a world of distractions and attractions, where the urgency of "doing" tends to supersede the need for "being," prayer must become as vital to our spiritual life as eating is to our natural. Nourished by the life of God within us, we will respond to our obligations with a persevering hope that sees life--even at its most menial and trivial moments--as always meaningful, always promising. And ultimately, our life of fidelity will culminate in an unending love song of praise; into an alleluia, the strains of which will know no end. Here on earth God is trying to teach us the song of eternity. In heaven, we will sing it in uninterrupted joy. "God wants us to sing alleluia and to sing it truthfully from our hearts without any sour notes from the singer. Let us sing alleluia with our voice and our heart, with our mouths and our life. This is the alleluia which is pleasing to the Lord. Oh, how happy are the alleluias of heaven! Here, we sing alleluia, but we sing it in anxiety and pain. Up there we will sing it in peace! Here we sing it in temptations and dangers, in struggle and anguish. Up there we will sing it in security and in true communion. Oh, how happy are the alleluias of heaven! Where there will no longer be either anguish or discord, where there will no longer be any enemies, where not even a friend will die. Up there we will sing alleluia and also down here we sing alleluia, but here we sing in preoccupation, up there in sure peace, here as mortals, up there as eternally living; here in hope, up there in attained possession; here the alleluia on the road, up there the alleluia of the homeland. Sing like the travelers sing: sing and walk! Not to pamper laziness, but to maintain strength. Sing and walk! If you walk, advance in good works, advance in upright faith, advance in a pure life without going astray, without backsliding, without stopping. Sing and walk!" St. Augustine
Copyright © 1999-2003, Daughters of St. Paul. All Rights Reserved.
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