Looking for the Light of the World at Easter

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This morning I arose from my warm bed, where I had slept in comfort and safety, and read my morning devotion. I went to the kitchen, where within five minutes I made a nutritious breakfast from the food in the refrigerator. I then packed a healthy lunch. Leaving for work, I walked without a single worry about safety to the TRAX station, where I caught a train that carried me straight into Salt Lake City. From the downtown station I again walked a half mile, unconcerned and unmolested, to my office, where I brewed a cup of tea and sat down to write this column.

There is nothing noteworthy about this morning, except that for once it occurred to me to give thanks to God for it. In many parts of the world – indeed, in some places in the United States – I would not have a safe, warm bed. I am fortunate to have a job that affords me the luxury of a refrigerator full of food, and because of the grace of God I live where a woman alone can walk unafraid. I have clean water to drink, and I have the liberty to worship as I choose. I can use this column to curse God for allowing hatred and fear and despair and disease and dying, or I can write words of praise for the morning sun shining through my office window, a prefiguration of the dawn of Easter, at which we will welcome our new life in the risen Lord.

Indeed, the gratitude I feel this morning stems, I think, from my Lenten prayer to see God in my everyday life and to be thankful for my blessings. I am very good at finding fault in all things, including God. He just isn’t running the world to my satisfaction, and I don’t mind telling that to him and everyone else. Only now and then am I reminded that his ways are higher than the heavens above the earth.

These reminders often come unexpectedly. For example, this morning as I left the house the morning star was shining brightly in the pre-dawn sky, drawing my attention to heaven. Mary, the mother of God, is known as the Morning Star, a title taken from the Canticle of Canticles: “Who is she that cometh forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun?”

It was Mary who, faithful to the end, stood at the foot of the cross as her only son bled, spoke his last words and died. It was Mary who, joined by other women, approached the tomb of Jesus on Easter morning and encountered the risen Lord, just as I hope to do in only a few days.

While still thinking of the resurrection, on TRAX I saw a middle-aged man gave up his seat to a young couple, who thanked him. The everyday courtesy of that exchange pleased me, because more often I see indifference or downright rudeness and too frequently am guilty in that regard. This Lent I have been praying that at Easter I will figuratively be washed again with the waters of baptism so my eyes will be opened to the needs of those around me.

“At the very dawn of creation, your Spirit breathed on the waters, making them the wellspring of all holiness” – these words from the Roman Missal will be spoken during the Blessing of Water at the Easter Vigil.

While each of us faithful has been brought to the source of holiness, the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us that “faith must grow after Baptism. For this reason the Church celebrates each year at Easter Vigil the renewal of baptismal promises. Baptism leads only to the threshold of new life. Baptism is the source of that new life in Christ from which the entire Christian life springs forth.” (CCC 1254, italics original)

Notice the repetition: The grace we are given in baptism doesn’t give us a free pass to heaven. It brings us only to the feet of Christ, where we must pick up our cross and follow him. The prayer, fasting and almsgiving we have undertaken these past 40 days have been reminders of just how difficult his way is in this world, but now with Easter we can see his light shining forth to guide us to his kingdom.

Happy Easter!