Jewish friends describe this as a parable.

Egypt represents imprisonment in something that is unhealthy, something that restricts the freedom of God's people.

God leads his people out of Egypt.

At first the enemy will pursue people. This is represented by Paraoh's soldiers.

But God intervenes in the story of the parting of the Red Sea.

The enemy is drowned.

There is a time trial in the desert until the people eventually come to wholeness - described as the promised land.

This is the celebration of Hanukkah.

Christianity also has a celebration that has its roots in Judaism.

It is something that all churches have in common, the Easter journey of Christ Jesus' death and Resurrection.

It is not only a historic event but also a deeply personal journey for every Christian.

As Catholics we experience it as a journey of the heart.

When I was a 14 year old in a small Presbyterian choir, I practised the words and music of the Bach Chorale "Oh Sacred Head sore wounded, with grief and pain laid down…"

It was a solemn and beautiful song, and I enjoyed singing it with a group of adults.

However, in the context of a Good Friday service, that song became unbearably sad. It filled me with grief. L started to cry, and I ran out of the church.

Tears gave way to embarrassment, and someone came out to rescue me; but that memory comes to the surface every Easter.

We all feel the experience of solemn grief in the Good Friday service, and we rejoice in the light in of the Resurrection on Easter Sunday.

This is ingrained in us.

If we make a movement from heart to head, we are reminded that sacrifice of animals was the Jewish way of atonement for sin. I guess that'd why we called Jesus "the Lamb of God."

We acknowledge the sacrifice for sin, but at the same time know that something else is happening.

Jesus not only dies for us, he is resurrected for us

Death and resurrection are like two sides of one coin.

How do we see this great gift?

In my understanding, Jesus demonstrated that what is resurrected is greater than what has died.

This Easter I am looking at all the little "Crucifixions" in my life. We all have that list. For a while we feel dead, but then resurrection comes and with resurrection a feeling of new growth.

I can see all the times I've got stuck in the tomb through anger, grief, self-pity. But there have always been good friends who have helped me out of self- imprisonment.

I find it interesting that both Hannukah and Easter are about redemption and spiritual growth.

While Jesus would have grown up with the Jewish story of the Exodus from Egypt, it is the story of his life and death and resurrection that is His gift to us.

And what a gift!

Easter is so big in meaning, it can't be measured

• Joy Cowley is a mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.

Dr JJ Carney and Dr Max Engel's research offers insights into the spiritual dimensions of athletic competition and how the two worlds can interconnect.

Evangelisation through sport

Carney and Engel teach a popular course examining sport from a faith perspective.

Their research posits sports as a unique platform for spiritual engagement and evangelisation, and their book "On the 8th Day: A Catholic Theology of Sport" aims to help students recognise the intrinsic links between religious beliefs and the realm of sports.

"The trials and tribulations in sports can lead to profound encounters with Jesus through the Paschal Mystery" notes Engel.

Examining sports' ritualistic and spiritual practices also challenges the distinction between superstition and genuine spiritual acts.

"We focus on ritual and prayer as a means of deepening one's relationship with God" Carney clarifies, differentiating between authentic spiritual practices and mere rituals.

"That's different from saying 'I'm going to pray this way, and God will make sure that field goal goes through'."

The professors also strive to help students recognise the grace, communal bonds and self-sacrifice in sports, mirroring Jesus' teachings.

Suffering death and resurrection in sport

Engel noted that sports' inherent suffering and loss present "an opportunity to encounter Jesus through the paschal mystery".

The researchers encourage students to explore how formative experiences like season-ending injuries or championship defeats relate to core Catholic teachings about the passion and resurrection of Christ.

"Seeing other people go 'Oh, I see what you're talking about...I didn't realise what sacrifice for the team had to do with Jesus' sacrifice for us'" Engel said, describing some students' reactions.

Student growth and insight

For Carney and Engel, some of the most rewarding aspects involve witnessing students' perspectives evolve as they uncover spiritual truths through the athletic lens.

Carney cited instances where pupils began to understand how "just because you didn't win the championship didn't mean God wasn't in that difficult experience".

Engel echoed that sports can serve as "an easy entrée" to explore profound theological concepts through a familiar passion, fostering deeper self-reflection among students.

Source

• Southern Nebraska Register
• CathNews

It's the sentence that lifts off the page.

It's a few spoken words that go directly to the heart.

We all have these experiences.

One gift that has stayed with me, came from an old Jewish rabbi.

He wrote: "It's a sin to read the Torah as fact. It is parable."

That came like a bolt of lightning to someone who read the Gospels as history and fact.

The clue was there in Matthew: "Jesus spoke all things in parables. Without a parable was not anything he said."

There it was. A statement made twice for emphasis.

But it took a historic rabbi to bring its importance to heart.

I don't believe reading the Gospels as history and fact is wrong. I would call that a "head" way of understanding.

It's when we read the Gospels as parable that we open our hearts to Jesus.

What we receive will be personal and absolutely right for the moment.

Like most of you, I have always celebrated Easter in the Church with fellow lovers of Jesus.

Good Friday is a time of sadness. Easter Sunday is resurrection and rejoicing.

The two events have separation in the tomb.

This year brought me an extra gift that I would like to share with you.

Covid was a blessing. It kept me housebound, just me, the cat and the crucifixion journey in all four Gospels.

It was a journey done with the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

With that, came the knowing that crucifixion and resurrection could not be separated.

They are a way of growth.

Jesus demonstrated that what is resurrected is always greater than what has died.

I thought of the desolate times in my own life, times when I seemed that everything I valued was taken from me.

Those situations were worsened by my inability to retaliate. To do so would have been against Christian principles.

I had times in the tomb.

Then resurrection came, and with it, the realisation that I was in a larger place.

You may wish to look at this in your own life.

When did your life seem to take a cruel turn?

When were your plans destroyed, leaving you helpless?

How did you feel?

Then what happened afterwards?

You may return to Easter and realise that Jesus did more than "die for our sins."

He demonstrated that he was "The way, the Truth and the Life."

And when he added, "No one comes to the Father except by me," he was not making a political statement. He simply told us that this was what God's life school is about.

He lived his life for us, and continues to do so.

If you doubt this, just take a close look at the beauty in your own growth.

• Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator. Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.

There will, of course, be many, many entries, however, they will have substantial similarities with each other.

That similarity is Christ is going up and away.

He is usually alone and those daring to hang around often appear scared out of their wits.

An example is the oil painting by Anthony Van Dyck. Painted c 1631 - 32, the oil hangs in The Wadsworth Atheneum an art museum in Hartford, Connecticut.

Click to view a larger image

If, on the other hand, you do a similar search and change just one word a great secret is revealed.

The change is from ‘Western' to Orthodox: ‘Resurrection of Christ in Orthodox Art.

The secret, at least for many Western Christians is hidden in the other half of the universal church, in places like Syria, Turkey, Greece, and Egypt; Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, Easter is not usually painted with a solitary Jesus rising from the dead.

Jesus is always surrounded by crowds of people—both haloed and unhaloed.

In fact, in traditional icons, Jesus is pulling people out of Hades.

Hades is not the same as hell, although we sometimes put the two words together, and so we grew up reciting in the creed that "Jesus descended into hell."

Instead, Hades is simply the place of the dead.

There's no punishment or judgment involved.

It's just where a soul waits for God.

So, the Eastern Church was probably much closer to the truth that the resurrection is a message about humanity. It's a message about history.

It's a corporate message for all of us.

Click to view a larger image

An expression of this Orthodox truth of Jesus pulling people out of Hades is a fresco in the Chora Church in Istanbul, Turkey, (c 14th C).

Take a moment to look at the different energy of the people in both illustrations; in the Van Dyck oil, the Risen Christ is heading up and away from; those in the image are cowering not in awe, but rather in fear.

In the Orthodox fresco, Christ is descending, with people clamouring for touch, to be taken, hold up, to be lifted out of that which holds them in place, inert.

Allow the Risen Christ to "descend" to those places in my life which hold me bound; reach out, and be taken by the hand to a new and life-giving place.

• Gerard Whiteford is Marist priest; retreat facilitator and spiritual companion for 35 years. He writes weekly at Restawhile.nz.

You will be the architects of the future.

Amazing science and technology will open doors we haven't even come to yet.

Hopefully, you will always be guided by what it means to be authentically human, which involves more than what science and technology can tell us. In fact, it also helps us to safeguard against the abuse of science and technology.

I am a fan of Professor Brian Cox.

As a former musician with the British bands D:Ream and Dare, and associate of Monty Python's comedy troupe, Cox presumably believes life is to be enjoyed.

He is right.

As professor of particle physics in the School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester, and BBC documentary presenter, he clearly finds the universe cause for great wonder.

It's interesting that science and faith both evoke a sense of wonder and awe.

Science is in wonder at what exists, from its smallest details to its greatest dimensions.

No matter how far back scientists look for the universe's origins, science can only wonder at what exists.

Faith is in wonder that anything exists at all, because God didn't need to create.

We need to find ourselves in wonder at what it means to be part of something that might not have existed. "The world will never starve from want of wonders; it will starve from want of wonder." (G.K. Chesterton.)

I find myself both enchanted and challenged by the history of the universe - 13.8 billion years to the first stars; now billions of stars within each galaxy, and trillions of galaxies, and planets formed by the stars; our planet formed from colliding debris over 4.5. billion years, at just the right distance from the sun for life to develop; distances measured in billions of light-years; gravitational forces that could kick planets into different trajectories; the combination of variables that gave us the world that is, instead of all the others that could have been but never will be…!

And planet Earth is microscopic within our solar system, let alone within the wider universe of other galaxies. But it is also special.

The massive transformations that were part of its geo-history led to further transformations in the development of life in its marvellous and complex forms (bio-history).

Last of all, and very late, human life emerged, and what emerges from human freedom - human history. Each of those histories; a reason for unending awe.

Eventually, out of what had been a vast wasteland of rock, volcanos, lava, gases and acidic seas, someone called Beethoven surfaced, who could pull together the sounds that make a symphony.

At the right time, unlikely raw materials had been transformed into a variety of instruments and delicate sounds that would beautifully blend and move together - moving us and drawing us together.

That's a long way from when the first boulders bashed against each other to form a planet capable of this - and every other wonder like it.

But if the past is mind-boggling, it's the future that really challenges me.

Our planet, scientists say, is destined to end up like the other planets - burned out and dead!

Some scientists surmise that by the time planet Earth dies we will have established ourselves on some other planet(s).

Who knows?

What we do know is that any planet that might have lit up to become our new home had better not count on getting its heat from the sun; it will have been the sun's demise that ensures Earth's demise.

Cruising around from one dying planet to another seems a lot of trouble to go to for unpromising returns.

Brian Cox relishes life; he says life is what gives the universe its meaning.

With sincerity and courage, he asks all the hard questions.

Following the evidence of the sciences, he tells us that in some trillions of years all the other suns will have burned out like our own, and "all life and all meaning" will vanish with them.

Where there was void before our universe came into existence, there will be void again.

I suggest the question of meaning cannot so easily be put aside.

Even if, as some surmise, our universe originated from some previous universe that also came and went, and so on over and over, the question always remains: why is there not just nothing at all?

Of course, time is on humanity's side: the sun is good for another five billion years.

But however long or short the time frame, it matters now because it is our present lives that are either pointless already if they are pointless in the end; or wonderful already if they are on their way to a wonderful future.

The overall direction of evolution has been towards life, with its potential for more wonderful and complex transformations. Can evolution deliver what it seems to promise? Or is it just part of the planet's life and destined to share its fate?

There was one transformation within the life of the planet that was qualitatively different from all others.

It reached right into the life of the planet, but took that life beyond anything evolution could do.

The Incarnation is about God's personal participation in the life of the planet and in human history - surpassing all other reasons for wonder, joy and thanksgiving!

A creation in which God has a stake is a creation with a future!!

Jesus' life - bringing healing, hope, peace, forgiveness and compassion into people's lives ratified human nature's deep hunch that this is what we were made for. And his resurrection confirmed that death does not have the last word.

Those who were witnesses to these things summed them up in their message that all creation is being "made new" - with a newness that creation cannot bring about for itself.

There is much at stake on this claim, because it means our lives will matter forever.

The whole of life is different - already - when we know that:

• all the good fruits of human nature, and all the good fruits of human enterprise,
• we shall find again, cleansed and transfigured. (Second Vatican Council, Church in the World, n.39)

People we love, times that were special, good things we have done, all somehow belong with us in our future.

What is truly precious to us now is never really lost.

The sacrifices we make for what is good and right and just, do count.

The planet Brian Cox has good reason to love, we have even greater reason to love.

So, how does this picture of our future sit with science's claim that our planet will die?

Some believe our spirits go off to Heaven, leaving material creation behind.

That view originates from ancient pagan belief that material things are somehow bad and ultimately don't belong. Christian belief is different, based on the ancient Hebrew belief that God made the whole of creation "good", and human life "very good". Our bodies are part of what it means to be human. It is our human nature, and the whole of creation, that is being "made new".

The early Christians spoke of the risen Christ as the "first fruits" of this new creation.

They emphasised that his resurrection involved his whole human nature.

It was bodily; but was not a return to this life. It belongs to creation "made new".

In this new form they experienced his real presence among them.

Reflecting on their experience, they now realised it was to be expected: "In a little while the world will no longer see me; but you will see me, because I live on, and you too will live" (John 14:19).

God's plan for our future does not discard material creation.

It is the present form of material creation that will pass. It will be transformed in the way that Jesus was transformed through his death and resurrection.

We don't have language for that, because language is based on our experience of the world in its present form.

It hardly matters that the planet in its present form will die.

What matters is that the Incarnation brought about a transformation that continues.

What that leads to is what we call Heaven.

There is more to the Incarnation than Santa Claus at Christmas and chocolate bunnies at Easter.

I indicated at the outset that our participation in the life of the planet and human history needs to be guided by what it means to be authentically human.

Much hangs on this, including how we use the sciences and technology.

So, what does ‘authentic' mean in this context?

In the second century, St Iraneus said we are never more fully alive and true to our own nature than when we "see God".

Pausing to know we are in God's presence sharpens our realisation that God never owed us our existence, or needed to create; we are part of what might never have been.

That's marvellous: it means that God, who didn't need us, wanted us!

When we know that, we become more alive.

That also means our existence is pure gift; so, we are true to ourselves most of all when we are being given, i.e. being there for others - in all the ways required by right relationships, with each other and with all creation.

That is being true to our human nature - "authentic."

It involves loving others the way God loves us: love that isn't owed or measured or needing to be deserved is a circuit breaker - the kind of love that "changes everything, and the only kind that can! Many Religious Orders, and lay movements based on the gospel, were founded to put that kind of loving into action.

Outside the Catholic tradition, it is exemplified in those religious movements which were based on the twin focus of social activism and a spiritual basis - e. g. Methodism, Quakerism, and many others.

Catholic social teachings about the dignity of every person and the sacredness of every life; the common good, including our common home; solidarity and option for the poor, are all premised on it.

It's hardly surprising Pope St John Paul II insisted that "humanity is the route the Church must take".

Being true to our nature - "authentic" - is compromised wherever a narrow focus on our own rights blinds us to our responsibility to be there "for others"; wherever deeper moments for noticing God's presence are crowded out by noise, hurry, and the pressures of modern living; where the fast flow of information displaces understanding and wisdom; wherever superficiality replaces depth - (e.g. where even news programmes are presented through the prism of entertainment, sometimes even called "shows")….

Authenticity involves being counter-cultural.

Knowing this, Pope St John Paul II told the New Zealand bishops to "make a systematic effort in your dioceses and parishes to open new doors to the experience of Christian prayer and contemplation" (Ad Limina visit 1998).

Contemplation means ‘seeing God', noticing God's presence, in the midst of life.

This changes how we think and act.

That is what the gospel means by "repentance" and conversion. It's about how we participate in creation's newness and its future.

• +Peter Cullinane was the first bishop of the Diocese of Palmerston North. Now retired he continues to be a respected writer and leader of retreats and is still busy at local, national, and international levels.

Take one's relation to a doctor. Insofar as we deal with a doctor qua doctor, we want him to tell us the truth about what is wrong with us. If we didn't, we should not bother him. We do not, if we are normal, want him to lie to us.

Unless we know what the problem is, we cannot decide what, if anything, we need to do about it. And if we decide the doctor is incompetent, we still have to find one that is.

Definitions are good things. They are intended to tell us what a thing is in words we understand. Generally, we want to know what a thing is whether we like it or not. Indeed, we need to know what things can harm us and which ones help us.

We understand that it is dangerous for us deliberately to choose not to know the truth about something. On the basis of what they are and of what we are, our knowledge relates us to everything that is not ourselves.

In the Easter season, someone who does not know much about what it means might well ask: "What exactly is Easter anyhow?" Accurate knowledge of it is not always easy to come by.

Indeed, we have the impression that many people do not want to know what it really is lest it make a demand on them they are not willing to consider. Still, what would be a fair and accurate answer to an honest inquiry about Easter that had no further purpose but to hear accurately what this word and the reality to which it refers mean?

On hearing the explication, the inquiring listener might say: "So that is what it means!" or "Makes no sense to me!" or "I had it all wrong" or "It's really complicated" or "Run that by me again..." In any case, the question—"What is Easter?—is a worthy one. Continue reading

Sources

• The Catholic World Report article by Fr James V. Schall, S.J., who taught political philosophy at Georgetown University for many years until recently retiring.
• Image: The Guardian

Holy Week - which culminates with Easter Sunday - enters into the heart and soul of Christianity, which is the death and Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth two thousand years ago. As Fr. Robert Barron puts it: "Without the Resurrection, Christianity collapses. It's the standing and falling point of the faith. Therefore, to deny the Resurrection is to cease to be Christian. You might pick up bits and pieces of Christianity here and there, and you might follow Jesus as a wise spiritual teacher, but without the Resurrection the whole thing falls apart."

Of course, when the historical figure of Jesus comes up (and it is the mainstream position among historians that Jesus did, in fact, exist), many try to do just that - reduce Jesus to another wise spiritual teacher, like a Socrates or Confucius. But can you imagine if your teacher or mentor said something like "I am the way, the truth, and the life"? But this man did; and so he was, as CS Lewis noted with his "trilemma", either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord. (Some add legend, or mystic - but these falter too.)

But was Jesus who he said he was? That is the question; and it all hinges on this news of Resurrection, an event that billions of Christians around the globe - backed by a heap of historical and philosophical evidence - still profess to this day.

But just what happened that week? And why has it mattered so immensely to so many down the centuries?

To answer that, here is a day-by-day musical guide to Holy Week. Each day (and its corresponding verse in Matthew) is followed by a song by Josh Garrels and a meditation from the Catechism of the Catholic Church - gems that both reveal, in their own way, the power and glory of the week that changed the world.

Palm Sunday: Jesus Arrives in Jerusalem (Mt 21:1-11) Continue reading

Sources

• Aleteia, from an article by Matthew Becklo, a husband and father, amateur philosopher, and cultural commentator at Aleteia and Word on Fire.
• Image: Et Resurrexit

Curtis plays Jesus in the film "Risen", which opened in New Zealand last week.

The Kiwi actor was raised as a Catholic, but lapsed in his teens.

"It's a role I have jokingly always wanted," he said.

"Being raised a Roman Catholic, [Jesus] was my first superhero. I had a crucifix near my bed. I wanted to be a priest when I was a kid."

Curtis described the experience of playing Jesus as "awesome" and "surreal".

But the actor found spending hours with his arms outstretched on a cross tough.

"Yeah, it hurt," Curtis said, "It was definitely painful. But that's the gig."

Curtis said he used meditation techniques to deal with the discomfort.

The movie, filmed in Malta, looks at the crucifixion and the Resurrection of Jesus.

Risen has Joseph Fiennes as a Roman officer on a mission to disprove the Resurrection.

The Sony-backed film is largely aimed at faith-based audiences - something that gave Curtis some initial qualms.

"I do my best to choose quality projects. You win some, you lose some. But I really liked the script. I thought it was an interesting take on it," Curtis said.

Initially, Curtis, who is in his 40s, thought he was too old to play Jesus.

But he was told the producers were looking for an actor who looked as if he came from a Middle Eastern country and felt like a real man.

"Ah I can do that. I was a builder. I was a carpenter of sorts. I'm working stock," Curtis said.

"He's like a working-class Jesus, not this guy who floats around in the clouds. I related to that possibility. I can be a working-class nobody Jesus."

Sources

• New Zealand Herald
• Image: New Zealand Herald

The Pope mentioned Iraq and Syria, Libya, Yemen, Nigeria, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, and Ukraine.

Francis also called on Christians to look at Christ's Resurrection story to remember that they are called to be "seeds of another humanity" that is not arrogant or violent.

Mentioning Christians suffering persecution, Francis asked: "Jesus, the Victor, to lighten the sufferings of our many brothers and sisters who are persecuted for his name, and of all those who suffer injustice as a result of ongoing conflicts and violence."

The Pope also prayed for a "resumed" peace process between Israelis and Palestinians.

Continue reading

Yet Easter often appears as the poor relation of Christmas.

Whether you believe or not, there is something about Christmas that manages to touch everyone. But without Easter there would be no Christmas.

In many ways, Easter makes more demands upon us.

The empty tomb is not like the manger: if we go there we do not find the beautiful, serene mother with her newborn baby, an adoring and gently protective father, and heaven and earth somehow caught in a silent moment of adoration.

At the empty tomb there is, well, an absence, not a presence. So, Easter really invites us into something utterly new.

It is rather frightening because it transgresses all our ways of thinking, what we know - or think we know - about the world and how we live in it.

We get used to ‘knowing' in a particular way. We are uneasy with things we can't master or that don't match our categories.

We're always trying to fit things into time, space, matter; even when we encounter something utterly new like ‘dark matter' or particles that we know only by their traces, we want to fit them in to some familiar conceptual framework.

But the resurrection of Christ cannot be fitted in like that.

It is not something that we can master; it is only something we can receive. Continue reading.

Source: ThinkingFaith

Image: EPM

An estimated 150,000 people were gathered on Easter Sunday in St Peter's Square.

The Pope delivered his traditional blessing and address Urbi et Orbi, "to the city and to the world" from the balcony of St Peter's Basilica.

Pope Francis said the Resurrection of Jesus is "is the basis of our faith and our hope".

"If Christ were not raised, Christianity would lose its very meaning; the whole mission of the Church would lose its impulse, for this is the point from which it first set out and continues to set out ever anew," he said.

Pope Francis used the phrase "Come and see" from the story of the empty tomb in Matthew's Gospel.

Francis said that "in every human situation, marked by frailty, sin and death, the Good News is no mere matter of words, but a testimony to unconditional and faithful love".

"It is about leaving ourselves behind and encountering others, being close to those crushed by life's troubles, sharing with the needy, standing at the side of the sick, elderly and the outcast," he said.

"Come and see," Francis continued.

"Love is more powerful, love gives life, love makes hope blossom in the wilderness."

"With this joyful certainty in our hearts, today we turn to you, risen Lord," said Francis

The Pope prayed particularly for peoples in Syria, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Nigeria, South Sudan, Venezuela, and Ukraine.

He noted that the Roman church is celebrating this Easter along with the Orthodox churches in an unusual alignment of their separate liturgical calendars.

Among those the Pope prayed for were those with hunger, "aggravated by conflicts and by the immense wastefulness for which we are often responsible".

He also prayed for the vulnerable, "especially children, women and the elderly, who are at times exploited and abandoned".

And he prayed for those afflicted by a new Ebola disease outbreak in West Africa.

Sources

• National Catholic Reporter
• The Tablet
• Vatican News
• Source: Daily Mail

In the action of having our feet washed or in washing the feet of another, we acted out concretely the love and very presence of Christ.

Christ, then, the love of God that is present, hands-on, human, concrete.

What is so striking about the Raising of Lazarus is the wealth of that kind of detail: an actual place, Bethany, two sisters, Martha and Mary, a group of mourners, weeping; Jesus deeply moved and also weeping, and a corpse, Lazarus, already dead and decomposing. At the same time, a powerful countervailing movement that is all about life: Jesus, confessed by Martha to be, ‘the resurrection and the life'; Jesus, commanding the stone to be removed from the tomb; praying to God for strength; calling to Lazarus to ‘come out'; and then, ‘unbind him and let him go'.

In this - graphically portrayed - we see both the power and sheer concreteness of the Gospel.

As I read it, I thought spontaneously of the new Pope, Francis, formerly Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Cardinal of Buenos Aires. Already we know quite a bit about him: how he studied to be a chemistry technician before going to seminary; had a lung removed after a severe attack of pneumonia; as Cardinal, lived in a small two-room apartment, cooked his own meals; travelled on the Underground , supported a local football club; and now as Pope, has refused to live in the grand papal apartment; has washed the feet (on Maundy Thursday) of some young criminals in a Roman Jail; is interacting warmly and spontaneously with the crowds that throng around St.Peter's.

More importantly, however, this man of obvious humanity and humility, has, by his words and actions, made one big announcement: that the prime task of the Church in future years will be to care and advocate for the poor and dispossessed of the earth. To understand this, we have to recall that in 1968, in Medellin, Columbia, the whole Latin American Episcopate agreed on a document that expressed an ‘option for the poor'. Not only was this an acceptance of the central thesis of the Liberation Theology of the time, it was also a clear policy directive to parishes, schools, and other Catholic institutions on that continent, the place where 41% of all Catholics now live.

Pope Francis, I would say, is now set to make this same ‘option for the poor' the keynote of the mission of the entire Catholic Church in coming years - and this in the light of the widely acknowledged yawning (and growing) gap between rich and poor worldwide. Can our world live at peace with itself when injustice on this scale threatens to tear the social fabric of societies apart, and this in the name of a profit-driven economic theory? ‘No' says the new Pope and this in the name of God and a genuinely felt human compassion. His power in world politics is of course limited; but by example, by speaking out, and by choosing to travel to the poorer parts of the world - as I'm sure he will - he will make the poor publically visible at a time when the media make them invisible because not newsworthy.

I don't think the media have really caught up with this. Rather, we're hearing ‘will he/won't he' stories about reform of the Curia - which really means the de-centralization of the Church; about celibacy of the clergy, abuse scandals, gay marriage - largely the agendas of western liberal societies. While all these issues are important - and the Pope has already addressed some of them (abuse, the Curia)- I am reminded of the saying of a Greek poet (Archilochus ,7^th Cent BCE), ‘The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing'. By this reckoning, Pope Francis is a hedgehog, and the one big thing he knows and has at heart is the plight of the poor and dispossessed of the earth.

More of what this means comes out if we reflect on the name he has chosen, Francis. Interestingly, the historical St. Francis of Assisi, who lived in the late 12^th and early 13^th Century, had his great conversion experience in a society that, like ours, was in rapid social change. It was experiencing the rise of cities in which people more and more saw themselves as individuals bent on economic and social success. Economic rationality and the profit motive were being vigorously explored for the first time. The downside of this, the losers or victims, were large numbers of poor, beggars, lepers and other sick people. For them, there was little or no provision.

In the same way that Jesus was ‘deeply moved' by the plight of Lazarus, Francis, the well-off son of a wealthy cloth merchant, was deeply moved by the crying needs of these same poor, the beggars and lepers of his own city and society. In February 1208 in the presence of the local Bishop and his father, Pietro di Bernadone, Francis publically divested himself of his fine clothes until he stood naked and from that day wore a habit made of sackcloth. More importantly, he dedicated his life to the poor and, at the same time, to rebuilding the Church - as the place where Christ was explicitly named and celebrated - and to gathering disciples around him, disciples later to become the Franciscan Order. He died in 1226.

To get the whole Franciscan ‘thing', we must also pay attention to Francis' wonderful vision of God and creation. Here's part of The Canticle of the Sun:

Praised be You, my Lord, with all your creatures, especially Sir Brother Sun, who is the day and through whom you give us light. And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendour and bears a likeness of You, Most High One…. Praised be to You, my Lord, through our Sister Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces varied fruits with coloured flowers and herbs …

As St. Bonaventure, great theologian and second generation Franciscan, reflected on this in conjunction with the whole life of St. Francis - and not forgetting Francis, the mystic, the contemplative, the man of prayer - what emerges is a picture of God as the fullness and source of all goodness, truth, and beauty, a fullness that this Creator God pours out in unimaginable prodigality upon the whole creation: people, animals, wild and tame, rocks, air, fire, water, earth, life and death - each and all in their different ways partakers of the same goodness and fullness of God. Thus, not only does the whole created order cohere - or better, co-inhere - this deep interconnectedness of all things creates an active or political solidarity. Each must care for the other, nothing and no one must be left out. Why? Not only because this goes against the grain of things, but also because it contravenes the very nature of God present in all things.

In appealing to St. Francis of Assisi as the inspiration of his Pontificate, the new Pope is perhaps doing two things: first, pointing - as in the story of the raising of Lazarus - to the real or concrete incarnation or embodiment of the living God in Jesus, the ‘resurrection and the life'; but this as touching the realities of the embodied life of all people, especially the poor; and second, to the way the whole created world is shot through - to our joy and delight! -with the very goodness, power, and life of God.

We thus not only have an ‘option for the poor', but also an ‘option for the creation and the care of creation'. All this, surely, is to be welcomed not only by Christians but by people everywhere. We're talking about ‘good news' that really is good news! In Catholic belief and practice this is centered in the burning, living - actual, concrete - presence of Christ in the bread and wine of the Eucharist: ‘Christ among us, the hope of glory' (Colossians, 1:27).

In this way, we're talking not about ideas of God or things that point to God, but the ‘here and now' challenge of the nearness and concreteness of the living God. Or, put another way, we could say that in Pope Francis, and in Christians or people like him, Lazarus Comes to Town! and boy, does he mean business.

• Raymond Pelly is a Priest and Theologian who works out of the Anglican Cathedral of St. Paul in Molesworth Street in Wellington New Zealand

He said women have always had a special mission in the Church as "first witnesses" of Christ's Resurrection, and because they pass the faith on to their children and grandchildren.

"Faith is professed with the mouth and heart, with the word and love," the Pope told an estimated 50,000 pilgrims at his weekly audience in St Peter's Square.

Pope Francis said the fact that women were recorded as witnesses to the Resurrection is an argument in favour of the historical truth of the event.

"If it had been an invention, in the context of that time it would not have been linked to the testimony of women", since the Jewish law of period did not consider women or children as "reliable, credible witnesses".

"This tells us that God does not choose according to human criteria," the Pope said. "The first witnesses of the birth of Jesus are the shepherds, simple and humble people, and the first witnesses of the resurrection are women."

Pope Francis said Jesus' male apostles and disciples found it hard to believe in the risen Christ.

By contrast, the women "are driven by love and they know to accept this proclamation [of the resurrection] with faith", he said. "They believe and immediately transmit it; they do not keep it for themselves."

Marinella Perroni, a leading member of the Association of Italian Women Theologians, said the Pope's words were "very encouraging".

"Pope Francis is taking up, with a stronger emphasis, the teaching of previous popes about the role of women in the foundation of faith and the resurrection of Jesus," she told Reuters.

"The fact that the Pope acknowledges that the progressive removal of female figures from the tradition of the Resurrection...is due to human judgments, distant from those of God...introduces a decidedly new element compared to the previous papacy."

Sources:

Catholic News Service

Reuters

Rome Reports (video)

Image: CBC

Her question penetrated. I turned to talk to her but instead found myself looking back in time and wondering about how the symbolism of the cross had permeated my life.

In my world, the cross offered rescue from a difficult eternity. The execution of an innocent man meant that my eternal life would be blissful instead of tormented. As a young person I accepted that sacrificial exchange.

I eventually questioned that, along with a literal heaven or hell but it took longer to wonder about the desirability of eternal life. Why would I when my society still tries to live forever?

Previously fuelled by the imaginings of theologians and religious artists, this egocentricity is now given credibility by medical science. But it's still a dream state. An illusion that the essential me matters so much it must be kept alive for as long as possible.
In the Christian church we're in Lent, the run up to Easter, a journey that encourages the contemplation of death and imaginings about eternity.

We get 40 days to contemplate the story of a Jewish man, profiled as human and divine. We explore his outspokenness and compassion, his challenges to the prevailing religious system and his horrible death by crucifixion. It's an outstanding story, rich, nuanced and multi-dimensional.

When I grew up, we weren't encouraged to ask questions about belief so I didn't realise that the death of a man/god on a cross was an exploration of mortality that had appeared before in human history.

Nor did I explore the cross. Much later I wondered if it might be an archetypal image that arises in the collective unconscious. Symbolically sitting at the intersection of the material world and the unseen, spiritual realm, constantly irritating sensibilities as perception is rattled. A growth spot where meaning can flourish. Continue reading

• Sande Ramage in Spirited Crone

Sande Ramage is an Anglican priest and blogger.

Speaking to visiting French bishops, the Pope described ignorance of religion, even "among the Catholic faithful", as "one of the gravest problems of our time".

In the United States, research from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln identified the Catholic Church as having the lowest proportion of "strongly affiliated" followers among major religious denominations.

In the 1970s there was only a five-point difference between how strongly Catholics and evangelicals felt about their religion, sociologist Philip Schwadel reported.

By 2010 that gap had grown to around 20 points, with about 56 per cent of evangelicals describing themselves as "strongly affiliated" with their religion compared with only 35 per cent of Catholics.

"The tremendous decline in Catholics' strength of affiliation . . . was somewhat surprising," Schwadel said.

He noted that the decline in religious enthusiasm among Catholics began in the mid-1980s — coinciding with the first revelations about the sexual abuse of children by clergy.

Moreover, Latino Catholics are less likely to report a strong religious affiliation compared with other Catholics, and the number of Latino Catholics in the US has been growing steadily in past decades.

In Ireland, an Ipsos MRBI poll has revealed that more than one in five Catholics do not believe in the Resurrection of Jesus or that God created the universe.

Of those who described themselves as Catholic, 45 per cent do not believe in Hell, 18 per cent do not believe that God created mankind, and 7 per cent do not even believe in God.

When making serious moral decisions, 78 per cent said they follow their own consciences rather than Church teaching.

When it comes to Mass attendance, the poll found 34 per cent of Irish Catholics said they attended weekly, with 16 per cent "rarely/never" attending.

Those attending Mass weekly have declined from 55 per cent in 1998 to 34 per cent in 2012, a drop of more than a third in 14 years.

Sources:

Vatican Information Service

Washington Post

Irish Times

Image: The Guardian

Such a move would bar thousands of pilgrims and visitors from the church that is considered to be the most holy Christian shrine on earth.

Already the Israeli company that supplies water to the property has frozen the bank account of the Greek Orthodox Church, which has the major ownership rights to the church. Ownership is shared with Catholics and Armenian Orthodox, while Coptic Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox an Ethiopian Orthodox have rights to use some parts.

The Greek Orthodox say they are now unable to pay stipends and salaries for some 500 priests and the 2000 teachers in its 30 schools. Cheques have bounced for services such as telephones, electricity and food.

For more than a century the Church of the Holy Sepulchre operated without paying for water under successive Ottoman, British mandate, Jordanian and Israeli governments. Then in 1996 the Jerusalem municipality handed its water supply to a corporation called Hagihon Inc.

In 2004 Hagihon sent the church a bill for 3.7 million shekels ($NZ1.1 million). Officials at the church, thinking it was a mistake, ignored it and Hagihon did not press for payment.

Earlier this year Hagihon sent a revised demand for 9 million shekels, covering seven years plus interest on the unpaid debt.

The two sides began negotiations, assisted by representatives of government departments and the municipality. According to the Greek Orthodox patriarchate, an agreement appeared likely when Hagihon suddenly enforced a court order to freeze the patriarchate's bank account.

The patriarchate has written to Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and president, Shimon Peres, for support. It also plans to approach Russian president Vladimir Putin, United States president Barack Obama, King Abdullah of Jordan and the prime ministers of Greece and Cyprus.

Hagihon says it is prohibited by the Israeli Water Authority from giving any party an exemption from water charges.

Sources:

Associated Press

The Independent

The Guardian

Image: Seetheholyland.net

The writer, Bill Tammeus, finds "there is something reassuring about finding the atoms that make up 2,000-year-old pottery shards, something that says that in God's economy, matter matters," and "we comfort ourselves with the understanding that what God created and called good, God does not intend to waste."

• Read Bill Tammeus' article
• Image: Parishable Items

Bill Tammeus, a Presbyterian elder, writes the daily "Faith Matters" blog for The Kansas City Star's website and a monthly column for The Presbyterian Outlook.

Right now we are aware that even the work of demolition is not yet complete; that the city is beset by all kinds of problems. That should not be forgotten. At the same time city planners have already started coming up with models of what the rebuilt city might look like.

I therefore thought that since the word ‘resurrection' has been used, and because this is the time of Easter, of resurrection, it would be in order to reflect on what the resurrection of the city of Christchurch might mean: the rebuilding and regeneration of the city? Or something more?

To get at the issues involved, I have nutted out five words that sum up what the New Testament means by resurrection, in this case, the resurrection of Christ; and which, by the same token, will serve as bridging concepts from what the Bible teaches to the realities of rebuilding a city. They are: standing, touching, communicating, remembering, prophesying. Let's look at each in turn to see what light they throw on the resurrection of Jesus and, at the same time, on our vision of the future of a city in ruins.

Continue Reading

Raymond Pelly is a Priest and Theologian who works out of the Anglican Cathedral of St. Paul in Molesworth Street in Wellington New Zealand

Picking up from the darkened surrounds, the Pontiff wove his homily around the theme of darkness and light.

"Life is stronger than death. Good is stronger than evil. Love is stronger than hate. Truth is stronger than lies," Benedict told the faithful in a packed St. Peter's Basilica.

Repeating one of the central themes of his pontificate, Benedict said humanity was too often in awe of technology instead of being in awe of God.

"Today we can illuminate our cities so brightly that the stars of the sky are no longer visible. Is this not an image of the problems caused by our version of enlightenment?"

"The darkness that poses a real threat to mankind, after all, is the fact that he can see and investigate tangible material things, but cannot see where the world is going or whence it comes, where our own life is going, what is good and what is evil."

On Easter Sunday the Pope focused his attention on Syria and the suffering of Syrians.

Recently returned from a visit to Mexico and Cuba, a tired-looking Benedict struggled with hoarseness as he led the crowd.

"May the risen Christ grant hope to the Middle East and enable all the ethnic, cultural and religious groups in that region to work together to advance the common good and respect for human rights," the pope said.

"Particularly in Syria, may there be an end to bloodshed and an immediate commitment to the path of respect, dialogue and reconciliation, as called for by the international community," Benedict said, making Syria the first of several strife-torn countries he mentioned in his traditional "Urbi et Orbi" (Latin for "to the city and to the world") Easter speech.

The Syrian government on Sunday appeared to be backing out of a cease-fire deal aimed at ending the country's crisis, saying that it will not withdraw its troops from cities without written guarantees from armed groups that they also will lay down their weapons.

Sources

• Huffington Post
• Associated Press
• The Telegraph
• Image: Huffington Post