Lent has led us to Christ’s Passion and Death, and Christ’s suffering has brought us to Easter. After catching my breath from the beautiful liturgies of the Triduum, I find a lot of silence surrounding me. A good silence—and absence of distractions such as timetables, parking issues and “to do’s”. This morning as I was putting away my copy of Magnifcat’s Holy Week publication, I found this quote:
[quote]Easter is Christ risen in us; our life is the risen Christ. Christ will flower in us, will bear fruit in us, will come to harvest in us. ~ Caryll Houslander[/quote]These words offered me a new lesson about Easter. Namely, that the Risen Christ is personal and lives within us. We need to find ways – small ways to allow the Risen Christ within us to bear fruit. I say small ways because at times we can become daunted with adding “one more thing” to our plate. But I think there are many little things we can do that have big impact on others. For example: How many times did you say “Good morning” today? How many smiles did you give away to people you didn’t know? Did you allow a rude and anxious driver to slip in front of you without getting angry? I know you can easily add to this list.
When you give it some thought, it is Christ’s loving and gentle nature that we want to experience. We want to gaze into His soft eyes and feel His gentle hand on our shoulder when we hurt. If this is what we want, no doubt others want the same. We can allow the Risen Christ to use our eyes, hands and face to communicate His loving and gentle nature to others.
If we become a facilitator for the Risen Christ, new energy is injected into our lives. The sadness that may reside in the corner of our heart is illuminated by the radiance of the Resurrection. Our despair is diminished because we can feel Christ’s love pass through our heart as we reach out to others for Him. I leave you with these thoughts as I go in search of finding someone to give a smile to!