Hello and welcome to this series of Reflections on the Lenton gospels through a Franciscan lens and to conclude our series we’re going to hear the Easter story and I’m honored to welcome our provincial Minister brother Larry Hayes uh to reflect on Easter for us and Larry all the Friars who will be
Seeing this know what you do but we also have others who aren’t members of The Province or familiar with Franciscan so can you tell me what uh Your Role is in Ministry to all of us sure Greg thanks good to be here with all of you if I had to summarize my role
As provincial two things come to mind immediately for me one is care of the brothers I think first and foremost my responsib ability is to look out for the welfare of all the brothers uh their fraternal care um to look after them individually and also look after the uh
Fraternity in general so it’s it’s a caring role it’s a in a sense a um um um almost a maternal role of care and then the second thing I would say is a keeper of the vision um not my vision alone but uh as the famous Proverbs says uh
Without a vision the people perish and so I think part of my role is as provincial Minister and with the provincial Administration is trying with the Brotherhood to articulate uh make clear as best we can what our vision is in terms of who we are how we live and
What our mission what our work is in today’s world so mother and visioner uh those two would be the the roles I see or father if you want but father has so many connotations mothering and and visioning that’s great thanks well let’s uh hear the Easter Story uh that you’re
Going to be reflecting with so this this is a reading taken from the Gospel of John CH 20 veres 1-9 on the first day of the week Mary of magdala came to the tomb early in the morning while it was still dark and she saw the stone removed from the
Tomb so she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved and told them they have taken the Lord from the tomb and we don’t know where they put him so Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb they both ran but the other
Disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first he bent down and saw the burial cloths there but he did not go in when Simon Peter arrived after him he went into the tomb and saw the burial clo cloths there and the cloth that had covered Jesus’s head not
With the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place and then the other disciple also went in the one who had arrived at the tomb first and he saw and believed for they did not yet understand the scripture that he had to rise from
The dead the gospel the good news of Our Lord praise to you Lord Jesus Christ so Larry where uh do you take this reading in your own Reflections What observations or particular uh Slants do you bring to it sure as I thought about it um I thought that I wanted to talk
About the resurrection us four words or sting around four words and those four words are desire Victory surrender and evolution first desire I think in a real way that the resurrection is best discovered and understood through desire I think of the Gospel that we just heard proclaimed that the G that
The disciple whom Jesus loved and Who Loved Jesus outran Peter got to the tomb first and believed first and I see in that little detail that love that burning desire of that disciple to get to the tomb to get to Jesus and the love that fueled his running and not only
That it was he who under not understood but believed first I think of the famous French philosopher blae Pascal who once said love have re love has reasons that reason knows not of huh um or I think of Mary Magdalene in this gospel today that she too came early in the morning before
The dawn in the darkness she too drawn by her intense love of Jesus and I think in another passage of the Gospel with Mary Magdalene weeping outside of the Tomb inconsolable because not only has Jesus been killed but then in addition it seems as though someone has robbed his
Body and she is inconsolable in her grief and then with one word one word her life turns around her weeping is transformed into unspeakable joy when Jesus the Risen Jesus speaks one word to her Mary and when she hears her name spoken by the one she loves and the one
Who loves her spoken by the Risen Jesus her life is transformed alog together desire at the heart of beginning to approach what the resurrection means for us in our lives I think of Benedict the 16th who said Being Christian it’s not the result of an ethical Choice it’s not
The result of a lofty idea it’s the result of an encounter with a person with the Risen Jesus who gives New Direction who gives a New Horizon to our lives and I think in our own lives through prayer through scripture through daily experiences we begin to touch onto
What the resurrection is about the continued presence of the Risen Christ with us in our lives it’s through that desire that desire to know that person the Risen Christ and I think too that desire is a heart of Franciscan spirituality I think for example of that
Day when Francis was in a church and he heard the gospel page proclaimed that changed his life that changed the way he was going to live and the lifestyle that he embraced it was the Gospel passage where Jesus sends out his disciples to preach the kingdom of God and to preach
Repentance without gold or silver or money or wallet or bread or spaff or shoes or extra tunic and shalan the first biographer of Francis describes francis’s reaction to this moment of encounter with the living Christ through the gospel in this way chalano writes Francis immediately cried out this is
What I wish this is what I seek this is what I long to do with all my heart desire desire takes us to The Living Christ another example I think of is Francis I don’t wear I don’t remember where it is in the sources but there’s a beautiful image of Francis and he’s
Weeping and it’s said that Francis says love isn’t loved enough francis’s intense desire to be closer to to be conformed to the life of Jesus and lastly speaking of Desire I don’t think we can ignore the desire of Jesus himself that led him to the cross and through the cross to the Resurrection
The Desire of Jesus not to appease an Angry God no not to satisfy a God who somehow needed Jesus to die no but a free decision based in Jesus’s unshakable love for us even when he was rejected even when the going got rough even when he knew the cross was going to
Be the consequence of his remaining faithful to proclaiming the love of God to us he wouldn’t give up on us and it was that desire of Jesus huh to continue loving us and loving us into a relationship with the loving God that led him to the cross and to the
Resurrection and it was his unfaith unshakable faithfulness to the will of his father so beautifully beautifully expressed in John’s gospel father may they be one as you and I are one so I think that to begin to enter into the reality the dynamic the possibility for us of the Resurrection the first word
That comes to my mind desire desire for that encounter with the Risen Christ and that leads us to a New Horizon to a New Direction in our life the second word that I think of is Victory I think very simply the resurrection assures us that God’s love is stronger than sin and
Death and devil huh that God’s love Resurrection is our ultimate consolation that God will have the final word and that that final word is New Life is joy is forgiveness is resurrection is a second chance is a new chance I think of Simon V they who once wrote that the
Love of God is the unique source of all all certainties the love of God is the unique source of all certainties I don’t know what else is sure in this world in this life but the love of God is sure and stable and unchanging isn’t it interesting that
John says God is love not God loves because if God loves maybe tomorrow God won’t love uhuh God is love the ultimate source of certainties and the resurrection assures us of the victory of God’s love over sin over death over devil of all that would separate us or
Keep us apart love will have the final word and what’s the first word over and over again of the Risen Jesus when he encounters his disciples peace peace be with you God’s love continuing to be poured out in and through Jesus I think of that famous prayer or saying of tar the shardan
Who said someday after mastering the winds and the waves and the tides and gravity someday will harness for God the energies of love and then for the second time in the history of the world we will have discovered fire Resurrection is that fire of new life and new love
Fueled by that ultimate certainty which is God’s love in The Franciscan tradition St Bonaventure writes Francis devoted such an Ardent love to Christ and his beloved showed him in exchange such a familiar tenderness that the servant of God Francis had almost continually before his eyes the physical
Presence of his Savior love will have the final word it may take a long time to get there but as Martin Luther King Jr reminded us the mark the ark excuse me the Arc of the moral Universe though Long bends towards Justice the third word that I want to
Focus my thoughts on Resurrection around is surrender and by this I mean that it’s necessary to situate the resurrection within the broader context of the Easter Trum Holy Thursday Good Friday and Easter Sunday because the resurrection is the sequel to it’s the consequence of a free and loving Letting Go the cross
And the resurrection are irretrievably bound together dying and Rising constitute what’s been called the cruciform pattern that characterizes our universe you can’t separate them they go together no Resurrection without the surrender without the cross first I think of a beautiful poem by Mary Oliver in blackwat Woods that ends like this to
Live in this world you must be able to do three things to love what is Mortal to hold it against your bones knowing that your own life depends on it and when the time comes to let it go let it go Jesus’s full and total surrender his
Yes to God’s will is met and matched by God’s total Yes to Jesus and in the union of those two yeses is the new life that we call Resurrection I think we see a microcosm of this in the enunciation Mary’s yes to the will of
God is met and matched by God’s yes to Mary and the result is the Incarnation New Life god with Us in human form for me Francis captures this this cruciform Dynamic of our universe so beautifully in one of my favorite prayers of Francis he writes therefore hold back nothing of yourselves for
Yourselves that he who gives himself totally to you may receive you totally the last word that I want to use to talk a little bit about Resurrection is evolution I think that the resurrection is a revelation of where all of creation is headed every transformation in this universe requires the surrendering of a
Previous state or form Letting Go proceedes all renewal death makes new life possible all of creation is cruciform now I have to admit when I begin moving in the direction of evolutionary thought I get lost very very quickly so my guide in this area is ilad Delio who has written so
Beautifully and at times for me difficult in a difficult way uh but about this aspect of the cosmic Christ or of of Christ and evolution and she writes things like this that isolated independent existence must be surrendered in order to enter into broader and deeper levels of existence that’s what Resurrection is about
Divinity and Humanity must find one another on a higher level of unitive Consciousness we are the rising up of God in evolution when our minds and hearts expand in love God is born in us and through us into the universe the world moves ever closer to its God intended goal the resurrection reveals
That the whole of creation is created by God with a purpose and for a purpose and what is that purpose the whole that the whole created order will be brought into glorification of the full body of the Risen Christ when God will be all in all the human Spirit surrenders its limited
Bodily structure and becomes open to the toward the universe and in some way a true brother and sister to the elements of the universe we’re called into the fullness of life in the universe through the outstretched arms of crucified love I think this Dynamic is echoed beautifully in a prayer of tar dardan
Who wrote this may my acceptance be ever more complete more comprehensive more intense may my being in itself offering to you oh God become ever more open and more transparent to your influence and may I thus feel your activity coming ever closer your presence growing ever more intense
Everywhere around me or to end and to quote the prayer of Francis one last time hold back nothing of yourselves for yourselves so that he who gives himself totally to you may receive you totally so there you have it as best as I can trying to make some sense of Resurrection desire
Victory fruit of surrender and part of God’s plan of all of creation where God one day will be all in all amen amen thank you so much Larry you’ve kind of expanded uh this uh idea from this Easter gospel the Easter mystery and I think it’s something our listeners will
Be able to take into the Easter Trum the celebration that’s uh before us as uh we put this recording together the Friars know you uh as a person who draws so many different wonderful Treasures of philosophy literature poetry and I’m really happy to that you’ve introduced we can introduce you to a broader
Audience it’s a great gift we have thank you so much and a great gift for me so thank you for the invitation you’re most welcome God bless all who listen to this a Happy Easter from us the franciscans God bless
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