Resurrection Wishes Quotes

May Light always surround you; Hope kindle and rebound you. May your Hurts turn to Healing; Your Heart embrace Feeling. May Wounds become Wisdom; Every Kindness a Prism. May Laughter infect you; Your Passion resurrect you. May Goodness inspire your Deepest Desires. Through all that you Reach For, May your arms Never Tire.

Optimism hopes for the best without any guarantee of its arriving and is often no more than whistling in the dark. Christian hope, by contrast, is faith looking ahead to the fulfillment of the promises of God, as when the Anglican burial service inters the corpse 'in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ.' Optimism is a wish without warrant; Christian hope is a certainty, guaranteed by God himself. Optimism reflects ignorance as to whether good things will ever actually come. Christian hope expresses knowledge that every day of his life, and every moment beyond it, the believer can say with truth, on the basis of God's own commitment, that the best is yet to come.

Everyone is a slave to their past. No matter how much you wish to move forward, the events of last year will bear down on you like the light of the stars as soon as you glance up. Unable to laugh or to banish your past, you carry it ceaselessly in a corner of your heart, waiting for it to resurrect at an inopportune moment.

For pity's sake, you are lying in a coffin, Mrs. Crofton. Unless you wish to be buried, I strongly suggest that you resurrect yourself immediately.

Have you ever happened, reader, to feel that subtle sorrow of parting with an unloved abode? The heart does not break, as it does in parting with dear objects. The humid gaze does not wander around holding back a tear, as if it wished to carry away in it a trembling reflection of the abandoned spot; but in the best corner of our hearts we feel pity for the things which we did not bring to life with our breath, which we hardly noticed and are now leaving forever. This already dead iventory will not be resurrected in one's memory..

But once a dead God, always a dead God, even resurrected. The Son must have the taste of death forever in his mouth. The Trinity must be tainted by it; there must be a certain stench at the right hand of God the Father. The horror must be real. Why would God wish that upon Himself? Why not leave death to mortals? Why make dirty what is beautiful, spoil what is perfect? -- Love. That was his answer.

We are split people. For myself, half of me wishes to sit quietly with legs crossed, letting the things that are beyond my control wash over me. But the other half wants to fight a holy war. Jihad! And certainly we could argue this out in the street, but I think, in the end, your past is not my past and your truth is not my truth and your solution---it is not my solution. So I do not know what it is you would like me to say. Truth and firmness is one suggestion, though there are many people you can ask if that answer does not satisfy. Personally, my hope lies in the last days. The prophet Muhammad---peace be upon Him!---tells us that on the Day of Resurrection everyone will be struck unconscious. Deaf and dumb. No chitchat. Tongueless. And what a bloody relief that will be.

the easiest thing of all is to deceive oneself, for what a man wishes, he generally believes to be true!

Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life.

There are an incalculable number of things within me that I frantically wish to be emptied of, and despite my most earnest efforts to remove them, they remain. And it is Easter that reminds me that God empties out tombs.

The adjective so often coupled with mercy is the word tender, but God’s mercy is not tender; this mercy is a blunt instrument. Mercy doesn’t wrap a warm, limp blanket around offenders. God’s mercy is the kind that kills the thing that wronged it and resurrects something new in its place. In our guilt and remorse, we may wish for nothing but the ability to rewrite our own past, but what’s done cannot, will not, be undone. But I am here to say that in the mercy of  God it can be redeemed. I cling to the truth of  God’s ability to redeem us more than perhaps any other. I have to. I need to. I want to. For when we say “Lord have mercy,” what else could we possibly mean than this truth?

If whatever follows these two words is not fully aligned with your perception of how the creative Source of the universe would be speaking, then make the correction on the spot. Say to yourself “I am the resurrection and the life in thought and feeling.” According to The “I AM” Discourses of Saint Germain: “It immediately turns all the energy of your Being to the center in the brain which is the source of your Being. You cannot overestimate the Power in this Statement. There is no limit to what you can do with it. It was the Statement that Jesus used most

You see, the bodily resurrection of Jesus isn't a take-it-or-leave-it thing, as though some Christians are welcome to believe it and others are welcome not to believe it. Take it away, and the whole picture is totally different. Take it away, and Karl Marx was probably right to accuse Christianity of ignoring the problems of the material world. Take it away, and Sigmund Freud was probably right to say that Christianity is a wish-fulfillment religion. Take it away, and Friedrich Nietzsche was probably right to say that Christianity was a religion for wimps. Put it back, and you have a faith that can take on the postmodern world that looks to Marx, Freud and Nietzsche as its prophets, and you can beat them at their own game with the Easter news that the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

Assume the feeling of your wish fulfilled and continue feeling that it is fulfilled until that which you feel objectifies itself. If a physical fact can produce a psychological state, a psychological state can produce a physical fact. If the effect (a) can be produced by the cause (b), then inversely, the effect (b) can be produced by the cause (a). Therefore I say unto you, "What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye have received them, and ye shall have them" (Mark 11:24, E. R. V.).

Sometimes it seems that half of the fairy tales of the world are some form of Cinderella, ugly duckling, or poor boy story, telling of the little person who has no power or possessions who ends up being king or queen, prince or princess. We write it off as wishful dreaming, when it is actually the foundational pattern of disguise or amnesia, loss, and recovery. Every Beauty is sleeping, it seems, before it can meet its Prince. The duckling must be “ugly,” or there will be no story. The knight errant must be wounded, or he will never even know what the Holy Grail is, much less find it. Jesus must be crucified, or there can be no resurrection. It is written in our hardwiring, but can only be heard at the soul level. It will usually be resisted and opposed at the ego level.

But the resurrection without the crucifixion is empty optimism, an optimism that gives credence to Freud's notion that wishful thinking is the sum and substance of our faith. Include the crucifixion--and our role in that bloody moment--and the whole picture changes.

Arise! Arise! Arise and shine! May Christ message of eternal life fill your heart with everlasting love, hope, happiness and new dreams.

At the end of life, nobody knows where the spirit goes.

Clinch's efforts in love were always of a mothering sort, for it is a feature of human nature to give what we most wish to receive, and it was a mother that Edgar Clinch most craved - his own having died in his infancy, and since then been resurrected as a goddess of shining virtue in his mind, a goddess whose face was as a blurred shape, seen through a window on a night of fog.

If God on the Cross is God shamming a human tragedy, it turns the Passion of Christ into the Farce of Christ. The death of the Son must be real. Father Martin assured me it was. But once a dead God, always a dead God, even resurrected. The Son must have the taste for death forever in His mouth. The Trinity must be tainted by it; there must be a certain stench at the right hand of God the Father. The horror must be real. Why would God wish that upon Himself? Why not leave death to the mortals? Why make dirty what is beautiful, spoil what is perfect? Love. That was Father Martin's answer.

Although he does not know the meaning of the words spoken by this man who has been sitting beside him for several minutes, he is aware that he likes the sound of his voice, its solemn power. He may also like the sound of this voice precisely because he is unable to understand the words it utters, and is therefore sure that they will not hurt him, they will not say what he does not wish to hear, they will not ask painful questions, they will not go back into the past in order to resurrect it brutally and hurl it at his feet like a bloody corpse.

You wrote to me. Do not deny it. I’ve read your words and they evoke My deep respect for your emotion, Your trusting soul… and sweet devotion. Your candour has a great appeal And stirs in me, I won’t conceal, Long dormant feelings, scarce remembered. But I’ve no wish to praise you now; Let me repay you with a vow As artless as the one you tendered; Hear my confession too, I plead, And judge me both by word and deed. 13 ’Had I in any way desired To bind with family ties my life; Or had a happy fate required That I turn father, take a wife; Had pictures of domestication For but one moment held temptation- Then, surely, none but you alone Would be the bride I’d make my own. I’ll say without wrought-up insistence That, finding my ideal in you, I would have asked you—yes, it’s true— To share my baneful, sad existence, In pledge of beauty and of good, And been as happy … as I could! 14 ’But I’m not made for exaltation: My soul’s a stranger to its call; Your virtues are a vain temptation, For I’m not worthy of them all. Believe me (conscience be your token): In wedlock we would both be broken. However much I loved you, dear, Once used to you … I’d cease, I fear; You’d start to weep, but all your crying Would fail to touch my heart at all, Your tears in fact would only gall. So judge yourself what we’d be buying, What roses Hymen means to send— Quite possibly for years on end! 15 ’In all this world what’s more perverted Than homes in which the wretched wife Bemoans her worthless mate, deserted— Alone both day and night through life; Or where the husband, knowing truly Her worth (yet cursing fate unduly) Is always angry, sullen, mute— A coldly jealous, selfish brute! Well, thus am I. And was it merely For this your ardent spirit pined When you, with so much strength of mind, Unsealed your heart to me so clearly? Can Fate indeed be so unkind? Is this the lot you’ve been assigned? 16 ’For dreams and youth there’s no returning; I cannot resurrect my soul. I love you with a tender yearning, But mine must be a brother’s role. So hear me through without vexation: Young maidens find quick consolation— From dream to dream a passage brief; Just so a sapling sheds its leaf To bud anew each vernal season. Thus heaven wills the world to turn. You’ll fall in love again; but learn … To exercise restraint and reason, For few will understand you so, And innocence can lead to woe.

God as God is feeling … yet shut up, hidden; … Christ is the unclosed, open feeling of the heart. … Christ is the joyful certainty of feeling that its wishes hidden in God have truth and reality, the actual victory over death, over all the powers of the world and Nature, the resurrection no longer merely hoped for, but already accomplished; … the Godhead made visible.

The Prophet ﷺ said, “The most beloved people to Allah are those who are most beneficial to the people. The most beloved deed to Allah is to make a Muslim happy, or to remove one of his troubles, or to forgive his debt, or to feed his hunger. That I walk with a brother regarding a need is more beloved to me than that I seclude myself in this mosque in Medina for a month. Whoever swallows his anger, then Allah will conceal his faults. Whoever suppresses his rage, even though he could fulfill his anger if he wished, then Allah will secure his heart on the Day of Resurrection. Whoever walks with his brother regarding a need until he secures it for him, then Allah the Exalted will make his footing firm across the bridge on the day when the footings are shaken.”19

Walking away from him had been almost impossible. But she loved him too much to do otherwise. Because by simply existing, she was putting him and anyone he cared for in mortal danger. She wished it was different…

The position occupied by Toporóff, involving as it did an incongruity of purpose, could only be held by a dull man devoid of moral sensibility. Toporóff possessed both these negative qualities. The incongruity of the position he occupied was this: It was his duty to keep up and to defend, by external measures, not excluding violence, that Church which, by its own declaration, was established by God Himself and could not be shaken by the gates of hell nor by anything human. This divine and immutable God-established institution had to be sustained and defended by a human institution--the Holy Synod, managed by Toporóff and his officials. Toporóff did not see this contradiction, nor did he wish to see it, and he was therefore much concerned lest some Romish priest, some pastor, or some sectarian should destroy that Church which the gates of hell could not conquer.

Still, the facts are always there. Every teacher, every parent, every priest who serves this kind of neighborhood knows what these inequalities imply. So the sweetness of the moment loses something of its sweetness later on when you're reminded of the odds these children face and of the ways injustice slowly soils innocence. You wish you could eternalize these times of early glory. You wish that Elio and Ariel and Pineapple could stay here in this garden of their juvenile timidity forever. You know they can't. You have a sense of what's ahead. You do your best to shut it out. You want to know them as they are. You do not want to think too much of what may someday be.

I walk the straight lines. I walk through the summer nights. I walk the silver rope of dreams. I walk through dawns of dawns. There’s not a lot that isn’t dying. I see people parading in front of each other like insects in a killing jar, watching each other die. I walk the straight lines through the Christ machines. Through the eyes of the throwaway people. Through the wards and the shores and the cracks in the skulls of the sidewalks. Through love’s howling vacancy. I am the freedom soil. I dig my own grave. I resurrect myself every night. I am all things to myself. I walk the straight lines. I walk the spider’s jailhouse. I walk the think line, the thin line, the white line and all the lines in between. I wish I could trade in my eyes.

The Ascent to Christ is a struggle thro’ one heresy after another, River-wise up-country into a proliferation of Sects and Sects branching from Sects, unto Deism, faithless pretending to be holy, and beyond,— ever away from the Sea, from the Harbor, from all that was serene and certain, into an Interior unmapp’d, a Realm of Doubt. The Nights. The Storms and Beasts. The Falls, the Rapids, . . . the America of the Soul. Doubt is of the essence of Christ. Of the twelve Apostles, most true to him was ever Thomas,— indeed, in the Acta Thomæ they are said to be Twins. The final pure Christ is pure uncertainty. He is become the central subjunctive fact of a Faith, that risks ev’rything upon one bodily Resurrection. . . . Wouldn’t something less doubtable have done? a prophetic dream, a communication with a dead person? Some few tatters of evidence to wrap our poor naked spirits against the coldness of a World where Mortality and its Agents may bully their way, wherever they wish to go. . . . — The Reverend Wicks Cherrycoke, Undeliver’d Sermons

That wintry night, a child was born, swaddled with light and hay to adorn, through divine intervention, and a woman pure. And Heaven Rejoiced! He lived as a man to die for His creation, to shed His Blood as an offering and render us clean, to claim us back unto Himself as One in God our Creator, One God in all men, and to all men their God. At this, Heaven cried ' Accomplished'! He resurrected and ascended for which Heaven trumpeted 'Restored'! And now Heaven plans this banquet called 'Many Called-Few Chosen' for the time ripe for Him to come again to sweep His bride off her feet, sealed with His Blood and garment divine, for her to live and reign with Him forever. So this is the Christmas Story, the story of Jesus Divine!

So the first step that those of us who wish to explore the meaning of resurrection must take is to recognize that the founding moment of the Christian story is not about either an empty tomb or the resuscitation of a deceased body. Its original proclamation asserted that in some manner God had raised Jesus into being part of who God is. Jesus was raised by God into God.

Suppose that members of a religious movement, such as Christianity, maintain that the existence of some powerful god and its goals or laws can be known through their scriptures, their prophets, or some special revelation. Suppose further that the evidence that is available to support the reliability of those scriptures, prophets, or special revelations is weaker than that God is hypothetically capable of producing. That is, suppose that Christians maintain that Jesus was resurrected on the basis of the Gospels, or that God’s existence can be known through the Bible, or Muslims insist on the historical authenticity of the Koran. Could God, the almighty creator of the universe, have brought it about so that the evidence in favor of the resurrection, the Bible, or the Koran was better than we currently find it? I take it that the answer is obviously yes. Even if you think there is evidence that is sufficient to prove the resurrection, a reasonable person must also acknowledge that it could have been better. And there’s the problem. If the capacity of that god is greater than the effectiveness or quality of those scriptures, prophets, or special revelations, then the story they are telling contradicts itself. 'We know our god is real on the basis of evidence that is inadequate for our god.' Or, 'The grounds that lead us to believe in our god are inconsistent with the god we accept; nevertheless, we believe in this god that would have given us greater evidence if it had wished for us to believe in it.' Given the disparity between the gods that these religious movements portend and the grounds offered to justify them, the atheist is warranted in dismissing such claims. If the sort of divine being that they promote were real and if he had sought our believe on the basis of the evidence, the evidential situation would not resemble the one we are in. The story doesn’t make internal sense. A far better explanation is that their enthusiasm for believing in a god has led them to overstate what the evidence shows. And that same enthusiasm has made it difficult for them to see that an all powerful God would have the power to make his existence utterly obvious and undeniable. Since it’s not, the non-believer can’t possibly be faulted for failing to believe.

But once a dead God, always a dead God, even resurrected. The Son must have the taste of death forever in His mouth. The Trinity must be tainted by it; there must be a certain stench at the right hand of God the Father. The horror must be real. Why would God wish that upon Himself ? Why not leave death to the mortals? Why make dirty what is beautiful, spoil what is perfect? Love.

Oh, I know, I know that heart, it is a wild but noble heart, gentlemen of the jury. It will bow down before your deed, it thirsts for a great act of love, it will catch fire and resurrect forever. There are souls that in their narrowness blame the whole world. But overwhelm such a soul with mercy, give it love, and it will curse what it has done, for there are so many germs of good in it. The soul will expand and behold how merciful God is, and how beautiful and just people are. He will be horrified, he will be overwhelmed with repentance and the countless debt he must henceforth repay. And then he will not say, ‘I am quits,’ but will say, ‘I am guilty before all people and am the least worthy of all people.’ In tears of repentance and burning, suffering tenderness he will exclaim: ‘People are better than I, for they wished not to ruin but to save me!

Quote from Father Tim during a sermon given after the former priest was found after a suicide attempt. "      'Father Talbot has charged me to tell you that he is deeply repentant for not serving you as God appointed him to do, and as you hoped and needed him to do.         'He wished very much to bring you this message himself, but he could not.  He bids you goodbye with a love he confesses he never felt toward you...until this day.  He asks--and I quote him--that you might find it in your hearts to forgive him his manifold sins against God and this parish.'         He felt the tears on his face before he knew he was weeping, and realized instinctively that he would have no control over the display.  He could not effectively carry on, no even turn his face away or flee the pulpit.  He was in the grip of a wild grief that paralyzed everything but itself.          He wept face forward, then, into the gale of those aghast at what was happening, wept for the wounds of any clergy gone out into a darkness of self-loathing and beguilement; for the loss and sorrow of those who could not believe, or who had once believed but lost all sense of shield and buckler and any notion of God's radical tenderness, for the ceaseless besettings of the flesh, for the worthless idols of his own and of others; for those sidetracked, stumped, frozen, flung away, for those both false and true, the just and the unjust, the quick and the dead.           He wept for himself, for the pain of the long years and the exquisite satisfactions of the faith, for the holiness of the mundane, for the thrashing exhaustions and the endless dyings and resurrectings that malign the soul incarnate.           It had come to this, a thing he had subtly feared for more than forty years--that he would weep before the many--and he saw that his wife would not try to talk him down from this precipice, she would trust him to come down himself without falling or leaping.         And people wept with him, most of them.  Some turned away, and a few got up and left in a hurry, fearful of the swift and astounding movement of the Holy Spirit among them, and he, too, was afraid--of crying aloud in a kind of ancient howl and humiliating himself still further.  But the cry burned out somewhere inside and he swallowed down what remained and the organ began to play, softly, piously.  He wished it to be loud and gregarious, at the top of its lungs--Bach or Beethoven, and not the saccharine pipe that summoned the vagabond sins of thought, word, and deed to the altar, though come to think of it, the rail was the very place to be right now, at once, as he, they, all were desperate for the salve of the cup, the Bread of Heaven.             And then it was over.  He reached into the pocket of his alb and wondered again how so many manage to make in this world without carrying a handkerchief.  And he drew it out and wiped his eyes and blew his nose as he might at home, and said, 'Amen.'                 And the people said, 'Amen.

According to the gospels, Christ healed diseases, cast out devils, rebuked the sea, cured the blind, fed multitudes with five loaves and two fishes, walked on the sea, cursed a fig tree, turned water into wine and raised the dead. How is it possible to substantiate these miracles? The Jews, among whom they were said to have been performed, did not believe them. The diseased, the palsied, the leprous, the blind who were cured, did not become followers of Christ. Those that were raised from the dead were never heard of again. Can we believe that Christ raised the dead? A widow living in Nain is following the body of her son to the tomb. Christ halts the funeral procession and raises the young man from the dead and gives him back to the arms of his mother. This young man disappears. He is never heard of again. No one takes the slightest interest in the man who returned from the realm of death. Luke is the only one who tells the story. Maybe Matthew, Mark and John never heard of it, or did not believe it and so failed to record it. John says that Lazarus was raised from the dead. It was more wonderful than the raising of the widow’s son. He had not been laid in the tomb for days. He was only on his way to the grave, but Lazarus was actually dead. He had begun to decay. Lazarus did not excite the least interest. No one asked him about the other world. No one inquired of him about their dead friends. When he died the second time no one said: “He is not afraid. He has traveled that road twice and knows just where he is going.” We do not believe in the miracles of Mohammed, and yet they are as well attested as this. We have no confidence in the miracles performed by Joseph Smith, and yet the evidence is far greater, far better. If a man should go about now pretending to raise the dead, pretending to cast out devils, we would regard him as insane. What, then, can we say of Christ? If we wish to save his reputation we are compelled to say that he never pretended to raise the dead; that he never claimed to have cast out devils. We must take the ground that these ignorant and impossible things were invented by zealous disciples, who sought to deify their leader. In those ignorant days these falsehoods added to the fame of Christ. But now they put his character in peril and belittle the authors of the gospels. Christianity cannot live in peace with any other form of faith. If that religion be true, there is but one savior, one inspired book, and but one little narrow grass-grown path that leads to heaven. Why did he not again enter the temple and end the old dispute with demonstration? Why did he not confront the Roman soldiers who had taken money to falsely swear that his body had been stolen by his friends? Why did he not make another triumphal entry into Jerusalem? Why did he not say to the multitude: “Here are the wounds in my feet, and in my hands, and in my side. I am the one you endeavored to kill, but death is my slave”? Simply because the resurrection is a myth. The miracle of the resurrection I do not and cannot believe. We know nothing certainly of Jesus Christ. We know nothing of his infancy, nothing of his youth, and we are not sure that such a person ever existed. There was in all probability such a man as Jesus Christ. He may have lived in Jerusalem. He may have been crucified; but that he was the Son of God, or that he was raised from the dead, and ascended bodily to heaven, has never been, and, in the nature of things, can never be, substantiated.

Neither sadist nor masochist, I still Must turn to violence: break, be broken. False image of myself I beg you: kill. Help me destroy the one of you I’ve spoken Within my wilful heart. It is no more you Than I am all that I would wish to be. I cannot really love you till I hew All these projections of an unreal me, An imaged you, to shards. Then death Will have a chance to free me for creation. God! All this dying has me out of breath. How do I understand reincarnation? But if I burst all bonds of self-protection Then may I find us both in resurrection.

Hamlet, here, on this stage, is two people, the young man, alive, and the father, dead. He is both alive and dead. Her husband has brought him back to life, in the only way he can. As the ghost talks, she sees that her husband, in writing this, in taking the role of the ghost, has changed places with his son. He has taken his son’s death and made it his own; he has put himself in death’s clutches, resurrecting the boy in his place. “O horrible! O horrible! Most horrible!” murmurs her husband’s ghoulish voice, recalling the agony of his death. He has, Agnes sees, done what any father would wish to do, to exchange his child’s suffering for his own, to take his place, to offer himself up in his child’s stead so that the boy might live.

Hamlet, here, on this stage, is two people, the young man, alive, and the father, dead. He is both alive and dead. Her husband has brought him back to life, in the only way he can. As the ghost talks, she sees that her husband, in writing this, in taking the role of the ghost, has changed places with his son. He has taken his son’s death and made it his own; he has put himself in death’s clutches, resurrecting the boy in his place. ‘O horrible! O horrible! Most horrible!’ murmurs her husband’s ghoulish voice, recalling the agony of his death. He has, Agnes sees, done what any father would wish to do, to exchange his child’s suffering for his own, to take his place, to offer himself up in his child’s stead so that the boy might live.

Are you a relative of her late husband?” the woman asked. His eyes widened. “I beg your pardon?” “It must be so hard for her, pregnant and just widowed,” the middle-aged woman continued. “We’ve all done what we could to make her happy here. Mr. Johnson, the curator, is a widower himself. He’s already sweet on her. But you’re probably anxious to see Mrs. Peterson. Shall I ring her and let her know you’re coming?” Tate’s eyes were blazing. “No,” he said with forced politeness. “I want to surprise her!” He stalked out, leaving the rented vehicle where it was as he trudged through the small layer of snow and glared contemptuously at the cars sliding around in the street as they passed. This little bit of snow was nothing compared to the six-foot snowdrifts on the reservation. Southerners, he considered, must not get much winter precipitation if this little bit of white dust paralyzed traffic! As for Cecily’s mythical dead husband, he considered, going up the walkway to the small brick structure where she lived, he was about to make a startling, resurrected appearance! He knocked on the door and waited. There was an irritated murmur beyond the closed door and the sound of a lock being unfastened. The door opened and a wan Cecily looked straight into his eyes. He managed to get inside the screen door and catch her before she passed out. She came to on the sofa with Tate sitting beside her, smoothing back her disheveled hair. The nausea climbed into her throat and, fortunately, stayed there. She looked at him with helpless delight, wishing she could hide what the sight of him was doing to her after so many empty, lonely weeks. He didn’t speak. He touched her hair, her forehead, her eyes, her nose, her mouth, with fingers that seemed bent on memorizing her. Then his hands went to the robe carelessly fastened over her cotton nightdress and pushed it aside. He touched her belly, his face radiant as he registered the very visible and tangible signs of her condition. “When did we make him?” he asked without preamble. She felt her world dissolve. He knew about the baby. Of course. That was why he was here. He met her eyes, found hostility and bitter disillusionment in them. His hand pressed down over her belly. “I would have come even if I hadn’t known about the baby,” he said at once. “The baby is mine.” “And mine.” “Audrey is not getting her avaricious little hands on my child…!

One of the problems, ironically, can be prayer. In prayer, we set our hopes high and call it faith. We pray for the perfect spouse, healthy children, successful careers, and serene families. We don’t just wish for these things but actually train ourselves to expect them! We fear the worst if we should ever lower our sights. Yet this is false faith. The apostle Paul longed not just “to know Christ . . . [and] the power of his resurrection,” but also “the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings” (Phil. 3:10 NIV 1984). The Christian witness and our ultimate hope is not merely a miraculous succession of miraculous escapes from all human affliction. Rather it is the joy of a deepening relationship with the “man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering” (Isa. 53:3 NIV 1984) who loves us and lives in us. I’m not suggesting that we should pray for hard times but rather that when such times come, we should feel a little less outrage and a lot more hope because Jesus, who went through similar struggles, predicted that we would have them and promised to be with us in the midst of them.

If Thomas represents an epistemology of faith, which transcends but also includes historical and scientific knowing, we might suggest that Paul represents at this point an epistemology of hope. In 1 Corinthians 15 he sketches his argument that there will be a future resurrection as part of God’s new creation, the redemption of the entire cosmos as in Romans 8. Hope, for the Christian, is not wishful thinking or mere blind optimism. It is a mode of knowing, a mode within which new things are possible, options are not shut down, new creation can happen. There is more to be said about this, but not here. All of which brings us to Peter. Epistemologies of faith and hope, both transcending and including historical and scientific knowing, point on to an epistemology of love—an idea I first met in Bernard Lonergan but that was hardly new with him. The story of John 21 sharpens it up. Peter, famously, has denied Jesus. He has chosen to live within the normal world, where the tyrants win in the end and where it’s better to dissociate yourself from people who get on the wrong side of them. But now, with Easter, Peter is called to live in a new and different world. Where Thomas is called to a new kind of faith and Paul to a radically renewed hope, Peter is called to a new kind of love.15 Here

Christianity . . . does not [simply] stand in the history that we only know and which knowledge we take to ourselves so that we say “Christ died for us and has broken death in us and made it into life. He has paid the debt for us. We need only to comfort ourselves with this and firmly believe that it has happened.” Since we in ourselves find that sin in the flesh is living, desirous and active, that it might work, the new birth out of Christ must be something else that does not work along with the sinful flesh and that does not will sin. . . . Here a Christian is to consider why he calls himself a Christian and is truly to consider whether he is one. Because I may learn to know and understand that I am a sinner, and that Christ has killed my sins on the cross and shed His blood for me, this in no way makes a Christian out of me. The inheritance is only for the children. A maid in the house knows well what the wife would eagerly have. This does not therefore make her an inheritor of the wife’s goods. The devil also knows that there is a God [James 2:19]. That does not therefore make him an angel again. However, if the maid in the household marries the wife’s son, then she can truly come to the inheritance of the wife’s goods. . . . The scorner and the titular Christian is the whore’s son, who must be cast out for he is not to inherit Christ’s inheritance in the kingdom of God (Galatians 4:30). He is no use, and only Babel, a confusion of the one language into many languages. He is only a talker and arguer about the inheritance and wishes to talk and argue to it with his mouth-hypocrisy and appearance of holiness, but he is only a blood-thirsty murderer of Abel his brother who is the true heir. . . . If one says, “I have the will and wish eagerly to do good, but I have earthly flesh that holds me [back] so that I cannot [act]; nevertheless, I shall be blessed by grace because of the merit of Christ. Since I console myself indeed with His suffering and merit, He will take me out of grace, without any merit of mine, and forgive me my sins,” he acts like one who knows of good food for his health and does not eat it, but who eats instead the poison from which he becomes ill and dies. What does it help the soul if it knows the way to God and does not wish to take it, but goes instead on a way of error, and does not reach God? What does it help the soul if it consoles itself with the sonship of Christ, [with] His suffering and death, and is itself hypocritical, but cannot enter into the childlike birth so that it is born a true child out of Christ’s Spirit, out of His suffering, death and resurrection? Certainly and truly, this tickling and hypocrisy about Christ’s merits aside from the true inherited sonship is false and a lie, [regardless of] who teaches. This consolation belongs to the repentant sinner who is in strife with sin and God’s wrath when the temptations come that the devil sets on the soul. Then the soul is to wrap itself completely in the suffering and death of Christ in His merit. [The Way to Christ, trans. Peter Erb, 138-139, 156-158]

I commit to deeply listening to your needs and feelings until I fully understand them and appreciate what you need to feel, hear and see in order to fully believe that I truly wish to make amends.

The testimony is followed by another montage of Team Impact feats of strength. “Ladies and Gentlemen,” an amped up announcer voice a la Monster Truck Rally proclaims, “We are Team Impaaaaact. Standing on faith tonight let’s give it up for the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the one, the only, the Risen Warrioooooor!” Are they talking about Jesus? Is he a cage fighter or the Lamb of God? If ever there was a cross-denying tribute to a theology of glory, it would be Team Impact. As is the case with the rest of TBN, the scandal of Jesus’ birth, life, teachings, death, and resurrection are ignored entirely in favor of a Jesus-as-Rambo theology; here the Lord just kicks ass and takes names, much like the freakishly muscular Team Impact guys. Taking one’s Christology from a couple of chapters of Revelation (ignoring the central Christ image, that of the Lamb who was slain) rather than the gospels is baffling to me. I recently saw an “inspirational” self-mocking emerging church poster. The word “incarnational” rested below an image of a heavily tattooed guy wearing a crown of thorns made of barbed wire. The caption read “What would Jesus do? I’m pretty sure he’d do stuff I think is cool.” We all wish to make Christ in our own image because the truth of a God who dies is too much. We’ll believe anything but that, and if that anything happens to bring us power and victory and glory then all the better.

The moment I wished every sentence, everything I knew, that began with England would end with “and then it all died, we don’t know how, it just all died” was when I saw the white cliffs of Dover. I had sung hymns and recited poems that were about a longing to see the white cliffs of Dover again. At the time I sang the hymns and recited the poems, I could really long to see them again because I had never seen them at all, nor had anyone around me at the time. But there we were, groups of people longing for something we had never seen. And so there they were, the white cliffs, but they were not that pearly majestic thing I used to sing about, that thing that created such a feeling in these people that when they died in the place where I lived they had themselves buried facing a direction that would allow them to see the white cliffs of Dover when they were resurrected, as surely they would be. The white cliffs of Dover, when finally I saw them, were cliffs, but they were not white; you would only call them that if the word “white” meant something special to you; they were dirty and they were steep; they were so steep, the correct height from which all my views of England, starting with the map before me in my classroom and ending with the trip I had just taken, should jump and die and disappear forever.

Holy Saturday is the name that is given to that 24-hour period nestled between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, between crucifixion and resurrection. It is a day that speaks of the absence of God and is as much a part of the Christian experience as the day before and the day after. It is the moment when we experience the depth of Christ’s cry on the cross, the moment when we feel abandoned by God and utterly alone in the world. This day is never as far from us as we would wish, for there are times when we all are unsettled by the feeling that we have been abandoned and that everything we believe may be nothing more than empty words and hopeless dreams. This is the horror of the cross, not the blood and suffering of an innocent, but the removal of God. Holy Saturday ridicules the idea that the feeling of God’s absence is reserved for those who are irreligious, for in reality it is only the religious individual who can really know this absence. This is analogous to the experience of waiting for one whom we love in a café. The later they are, the more we experience their absence. Our beloved is absent to everyone in the room but we are the only one who feels it. Who among us does not find ourselves dwelling, from time to time, or perhaps at all times, in the space of Holy Saturday? Yet this day is rarely spoken of and the experience is often seen as one to be avoided or merely tolerated rather than embraced.

Many of us were raised to think of abundance as something desirable. The cornucopia, the horn of plenty, the allure of inexhaustible gifts. In practice, however…well…be careful what you wish for. Once we shifted the collective locus of our attention to smaller and smaller screens, abundance was no longer as appealing, and needless clutter became the enemy of useful content.

Man … has the wish not to die. This wish is originally identical with the instinct of self-preservation. … Subsequently, … this primary negative wish becomes the positive wish for a life, and a better life, after death. … [T]his wish involves the further wish for the certainty of its fulfilment. Reason can afford no such certainty. … Such a certainty requires an immediate personal assurance, a practical demonstration. This can only be given to me by … a dead person … rising again from the grave; and he must be no indifferent person, but … representative of all others, so that his resurrection also maybe the … guarantee of theirs. The resurrection of Christ is … the satisfied desire of man for an immediate certainty of his personal existence after death[.]

The vibrating sounds of a big brass bell reached them from the town. Nekhludoff’s driver, who stood by his side, and the other men on the raft raised their caps and crossed themselves, all except a short, dishevelled old man, who stood close to the railway and whom Nekhludoff had not noticed before. He did not cross himself, but raised his head and looked at Nekhludoff. This old man wore a patched coat, cloth trousers and worn and patched shoes. He had a small wallet on his back, and a high fur cap with the fur much rubbed on his head. “Why don’t you pray, old chap?” asked Nekhludoff’s driver as he replaced and straightened his cap. “Are you unbaptized?” “Who’s one to pray to?” asked the old man quickly, in a determinately aggressive tone. “To whom? To God, of course,” said the driver sarcastically. “And you just show me where he is, that god.” There was something so serious and firm in the expression of the old man, that the driver felt that he had to do with a strong-minded man, and was a bit abashed. And trying not to show this, not to be silenced, and not to be put to shame before the crowd that was observing them, he answered quickly. “Where? In heaven, of course.” “And have you been up there?” “Whether I’ve been or not, every one knows that you must pray to God.” “No one has ever seen God at any time. The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father he hath declared him,” said the old man in the same rapid manner, and with a severe frown on his brow. “It’s clear you are not a Christian, but a hole worshipper. You pray to a hole,” said the driver, shoving the handle of his whip into his girdle, pulling straight the harness on one of the horses. Some one laughed. “What is your faith, Dad?” asked a middle-aged man, who stood by his cart on the same side of the raft. “I have no kind of faith, because I believe no one--no one but myself,” said the old man as quickly and decidedly as before. “How can you believe yourself?” Nekhludoff asked, entering into a conversation with him. “You might make a mistake.” “Never in your life,” the old man said decidedly, with a toss of his head. “Then why are there different faiths?” Nekhludoff asked. “It’s just because men believe others and do not believe themselves that there are different faiths. I also believed others, and lost myself as in a swamp,--lost myself so that I had no hope of finding my way out. Old believers and new believers and Judaisers and Khlysty and Popovitzy, and Bespopovitzy and Avstriaks and Molokans and Skoptzy--every faith praises itself only, and so they all creep about like blind puppies. There are many faiths, but the spirit is one--in me and in you and in him. So that if every one believes himself all will be united. Every one be himself, and all will be as one.” The old man spoke loudly and often looked round, evidently wishing that as many as possible should hear him. “And have you long held this faith?” “I? A long time. This is the twenty-third year that they persecute me.” “Persecute you? How?” “As they persecuted Christ, so they persecute me. They seize me, and take me before the courts and before the priests, the Scribes and the Pharisees. Once they put me into a madhouse; but they can do nothing because I am free. They say, ‘What is your name?’ thinking I shall name myself. But I do not give myself a name. I have given up everything: I have no name, no place, no country, nor anything. I am just myself. ‘What is your name?’ ‘Man.’ ‘How old are you?’ I say, ‘I do not count my years and cannot count them, because I always was, I always shall be.’ ‘Who are your parents?’ ‘I have no parents except God and Mother Earth. God is my father.’ ‘And the Tsar? Do you recognise the Tsar?’ they say. I say, ‘Why not? He is his own Tsar, and I am my own Tsar.’ ‘Where’s the good of talking to him,’ they say, and I say, ‘I do not ask you to talk to me.’ And so they begin tormenting me.

This ”joy” which I have selected as the mark of the true fairy-story (or romance), or as the seal upon it, merits more consideration. Probably every writer making a secondary world, a fantasy, every sub-creator, wishes in some measure to be a real maker, or hopes that he is drawing on reality: hopes that the peculiar quality of this secondary world (if not all the details) are derived from Reality, or are flowing into it. If he indeed achieves a quality that can fairly be described by the dictionary definition: “inner consistency of reality,” it is difficult to conceive how this can be, if the work does not in some way partake of reality. The peculiar quality of the ”joy” in successful Fantasy can thus be explained as a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth. It is not only a “consolation” for the sorrow of this world, but a satisfaction, and an answer to that question, “Is it true?” The answer to this question that I gave at first was (quite rightly): “If you have built your little world well, yes: it is true in that world.” That is enough for the artist (or the artist part of the artist). But in the “eucatastrophe” we see in a brief vision that the answer may be greater—it may be a faroff gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world. The use of this word gives a hint of my epilogue. It is a serious and dangerous matter. It is presumptuous of me to touch upon such a theme; but if by grace what I say has in any respect any validity, it is, of course, only one facet of a truth incalculably rich: finite only because the capacity of Man for whom this was done is finite. I would venture to say that approaching the Christian Story from this direction, it has long been my feeling (a joyous feeling) that God redeemed the corrupt making-creatures, men, in a way fitting to this aspect, as to others, of their strange nature. The Gospels contain a fairystory, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels—peculiarly artistic, beautiful, and moving: “mythical” in their perfect, self-contained significance; and among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe. But this story has entered History and the primary world; the desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation. The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man's history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy. It has pre-eminently the “inner consistency of reality.” There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many sceptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. For the Art of it has the supremely convincing tone of Primary Art, that is, of Creation. To reject it leads either to sadness or to wrath. It is not difficult to imagine the peculiar excitement and joy that one would feel, if any specially beautiful fairy-story were found to be “primarily” true, its narrative to be history, without thereby necessarily losing the mythical or allegorical significance that it had possessed. It is not difficult, for one is not called upon to try and conceive anything of a quality unknown. The joy would have exactly the same quality, if not the same degree, as the joy which the “turn” in a fairy-story gives: such joy has the very taste of primary truth. (Otherwise its name would not be joy.) It looks forward (or backward: the direction in this regard is unimportant) to the Great Eucatastrophe. The Christian joy, the Gloria, is of the same kind; but it is preeminently (infinitely, if our capacity were not finite) high and joyous. But this story is supreme; and it is true. Art has been verified. God is the Lord, of angels, and of men—and of elves. Legend and History have met and fused.

It is important to observe in the Bible not only what it contains, but also what it omits. One interesting feature of the New Testament is that Jesus never asked anyone to tell Him about the circumstances of his sins. He knew men to be sinful, so the details of their trespasses, be they small offenses or huge crimes, did not interest Him. Instead of probing in dirt, He went from one man to another saying, “Be of good cheer, son; be of good cheer, daughter. Your sins are forgiven.” Another important feature is that no one ever said to Jesus, “Please, forgive me,” or, “I am sorry.” On the last evening all the apostles fled and one denied Him. Later, when the resurrected Lord appeared to them, it would have been appropriate for them to ask His forgiveness. None did. Whoever looked into Jesus’ face saw there so much love and goodness that he felt, “With Jesus forgiveness is self-evident. His willingness to forgive me is much greater than my readiness to ask for forgiveness. His wish for me to be saved is far greater than my own. His desire for my fellowship in heaven is greater than my wish to go there.” They did not approach Jesus with words of apology, but only trusted in His goodness.

And this hope is not wishful thinking but is grounded in history, the sign of which is the risen Christ.

If time was a dimension wholly within the boundaries of material creation, and if God was beyond time, then he could, if he so wished, accept the prayer of a man who lived at the end of the second millennium and apply it to the needs of those who had gone before. Were not the death and Resurrection of Christ still active and effective, not simply as a linear chain of cause and effect, but as a living thing whose generative power is undiminished? The Mass itself was a mysterious suspension of time, a reaching through impossible barriers into the eternal Present, a moment of union with the Sacrifice on the Cross of Calvary. History, therefore, was a limited dimension, a compression of an unspeakably vast and beautiful dance into a solid icon, an incarnate Logos, a terrarium of fertile gardens in the cup of a Hand. The metaphors mixed and agitated in his mind, each reflecting a facet of the light of understanding, none of them complete, none of them a summation of the entire problem.

If brute force wouldn't suffice, however, there was always the famous Viking cunning. The fleet was put to anchor and under a flag of truce some Vikings approached the gate. Their leader, they claimed, was dying and wished to be baptized as a Christian. As proof, they had brought along the ailing Hastein on a litter, groaning and sweating.  The request presented a moral dilemma for the Italians. As Christians they could hardly turn away a dying penitent, but they didn't trust the Vikings and expected a trick. The local count, in consultation with the bishop, warily decided to admit Hastein, but made sure that he was heavily guarded. A detachment of soldiers was sent to collect Hastein and a small retinue while the rest of the Vikings waited outside.  Despite the misgivings, the people of Luna flocked to see the curiosity of a dreaded barbarian peacefully inside their city. The Vikings were on their best behavior as they were escorted to the cathedral, remaining silent and respectful. Throughout the service, which probably lasted a few hours, Hastein was a picture of reverence and weakness, a dying man who had finally seen the light. The bishop performed the baptism, and the count stood in as godfather, christening Hastein with a new name. When the rite had concluded, the Vikings respectfully picked up the litter and carried their stricken leader back to the ships.  That night, a Viking messenger reappeared at the gates, and after thanking the count for allowing the baptism, sadly informed him that Hastein had died. Before he expired, however, he had asked to be given a funeral mass and to be buried in the holy ground of the cathedral cemetery.  The next day a solemn procession of fifty Vikings, each dressed in long robes of mourning, entered the city carrying Hastein's corpse on a bier. Virtually all the inhabitants of the city had turned out to witness the event, joining the cavalcade all the way to the cathedral. The bishop, surrounded by a crowd of monks and priests bearing candles, blessed the coffin with holy water, and led the entire procession inside.  As the bishop launched into the funerary Mass, reminding all good Christians to look forward to the day of resurrection, the coffin lid was abruptly thrown to the ground and a very much alive Hastein leapt out. As he cut down the bishop, his men threw off their cloaks and drew their weapons. A few ran to bar the doors, the rest set about slaughtering the congregation.  At the same time – perhaps alerted by the tolling bell – Bjorn Ironside led the remaining Vikings into the city and they fanned out, looking for treasure. The plundering lasted for the entire day. Portable goods were loaded onto the ships, the younger citizens were spared to be sold as slaves, and the rest were killed. Finally, when night began to fall, Hastein called off the attack. Since nothing more could fit on their ships, they set fire to the city and sailed away.97 For the next two years, the Norsemen criss-crossed the Mediterranean, raiding both the African and European coasts. There are even rumors that they tried to sack Alexandria in Egypt, but were apparently unable to take it by force or stealth.

Everyone is a slave to their past. No matter how much you wish to move forward, the events of last year will bear down on you like the light of the stars as soon as you glance up. Unable to laugh or to banish your past, you carry it ceaselessly in a corner of your heart, waiting for it to resurrect at an inopportune moment.

Mr. Og. Most humans, in varying degrees, are already dead. In one way or another they’ve lost their dreams, their ambitions, their desire for a better life. They have surrendered their fight for self esteem and they have compromised their great potential. They’ve settled for a life of mediocrity, days of despair and nights of tears. There are no more than living deaths confined to cemeteries of their choice. Yet they need not remain in that state. They can be resurrected from their sorry condition. They can each performed the greatest miracle in the world. They can each come back from the dead… And in those books are the simple secrets, techniques, and methods which they can still apply to their own lives to become anything they wish to be and to attain all the true riches of life.

The resurrection of Jesus, which is backed up by both secular and non-secular history, has shown to all that Jesus really is Who He claimed to be.  Despite those that wish to deny His deity, the hard evidence shows that Jesus really is God.

When the Council’s icy fingers slide the photo of Sasha’s wry smile and sleepy eyes across the table, I will nod my head like I always do. Then I will find her. I will honor the dying wish of her brother, whom I murdered, and protect her from myself. And then I will ask her out.

I wish I could control myself! When I get in a tight place, it seems all I can think of is cutting their heads off!

Japanese tragedy illustrates this aspect of the Trinity better than Greek tragedy, Kitamori taught, because it is based on the feeling expressed by the word tsurasa. This is the peculiar pain felt when someone dies in behalf of another. yet the term implies neither bitterness nor sadness. Nor is tsurasa burdened with the dialectical tension in the struggle with fate that is emphasized in Greek drama, since dialectic is a concept foreign to Japan. Tsurasa is pain with resignation and acceptance. Kitamori called our attention to a Kabuki play, The Village School. The feudal lord of a retainer named Matsuo is defeated in battle and forced into exile. Matsuo feigns allegiance to the victor but remains loyal to his vanquished lord. When he learns that his lord's son and heir, Kan Shusai, has been traced to a village school and marked for execution, Matsuo resolves to save the boy's life. The only way to do this, he realizes, is to substitute a look-alike who can pass for Kan Shusai and be mistakenly killed in his place. Only one substitute will likely pass: Matsuo's own son. So when the enemy lord orders the schoolmaster to produce the head of Kan Shusai, Matsuo's son consents to be beheaded instead. The plot succeeds: the enemy is convinced that the proffered head is that of Kan Shusai. Afterwards, in a deeply emotional scene, the schoolmaster tells Matsuo and his wife that their son died like a true samurai to save the life of the other boy. The parents burst into tears of tsurasa. 'Rejoice my dear,' Matsuo says consolingly to his wife. 'Our son has been of service to our lord.' Tsurasa is also expressed in a Noh drama, The Valley Rite. A fatherless boy named Matsuwaka is befriended by the leader of a band of ascetics, who invites him to accompany the band on a pilgrimage up a sacred mountain. On the way, tragically, Matsuwaka falls ill. According to an ancient and inflexible rule of the ascetics, anyone who falls ill on a pilgrimage must be put to death. The band's leader is stricken with sorrow; he cannot bear to sacrifice the boy he has come to love as his own son. He wishes that 'he could die and the boy live.' But the ascetics follow the rule. They hurl the boy into a ravine, then fling stones and clods of dirt to bury him. The distressed leader then asks to be thrown into the ravine after the boy. His plea so moves the ascetics that they pray for Matsuwaka to be restored to life. Their prayer is answered, and mourning turns to celebration. So it was with God's sacrifice of his Son. The Son's obedience to the Father, the Father's pain in the suffering and death of the Son, the Father's joy in the resurrection - these expressions of a deep personal relationship enrich our understanding of the triune God. Indeed, the God of dynamic relationships within himself is also involved with us his creatures. No impassive God, he interacts with the society of persons he has made in his own image. He expresses his love to us. He shares in our joys and sorrows. This is true of the Holy Spirit as well as the Father and Son... Unity, mystery, relationship - these are the principles of Noh that inform our understanding of the on God as Father, Son, and Spirit; or as Parent, Child, and Spirit; or as Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier...this amazing doctrine inspires warm adoration, not cold analysis. It calls for doxology, not definition.

Why the sigh, love?” “This has happened too fast, and I am not at all at peace with it. I like you, Lucas, I like you a very great deal…” Whatever arguments she was trying to resurrect, they died on another sigh as Deene started massaging her neck. “I like you a very great deal too, and we’ll manage, Eve. Trust me on that. I’ll call on you tomorrow before I head into Town, and expect to see you there forthwith. No leaving me to face all the good wishes myself, if you please.” The longer he worked at the tense muscles of her neck, the more she rested against him. “Give me a week, Lucas.” “Do something for me.” She was becoming a warm, boneless press of female against him with results as predictable as they were inappropriate. “What?” “Drive out. Take that little fellow who was in the traces today, hitch up one of your sister Sophie’s great beasts, but don’t hole up here and fret yourself into a decline. Drive out, Eve Windham. Get into the sunshine, call on the neighbors with your news, let Her Grace show you off a bit, but get the ribbons into your hands again soon.” She pulled away a little to peer up at him. “This is an odd request, but I’ll tend to it.” “And my only request until I can squire you about in Town.” She blinked. “My headache feels better.” He’d been able to ease her headache, and she liked him a very great deal. Deene kissed her cheek, waited until she’d disappeared into her room, then strode off to have that drink His Grace had mentioned. Eve had agreed to drive out. A celebration was, indeed, in order. ***

11.8 Christmas came and went. Parties; provincial exile; a return to London more relieved than joyous; more parties. On the 1st of January I found myself sitting, once more, beside my desk and blotter, looking through the window at the dawn. I always wake up early after drinking. It was a clear dawn, a good one to usher the new year in. The first phase of the Project would be going live this year. I looked at the pond, this site (since I’d rescued the girl there) of a minor resurrection, and thought of Vanuatans once again. On New Year’s Day, the men ride out on horses or just run about a stretch of pasture firing arrows up into the air: straight up, more or less vertically. The arrows, naturally, fall back down, with pretty much the same velocity as that with which they flew up in the first place. The men ride or run around until an arrow lands on one of them and kills him. Then they stop: the ritual demands that one man must be taken every year. Hungover, jaded, generally un-invigorated by the world, I found myself, in reverie, wishing—just as I had as a child when jumping from my sisters’ bed—that I could be one of these Vanuatan warriors, galloping about the fields, new-year’s wind biting at my cheeks, death whistling all around me, whistling me to life …

Why didn’t you just come to my apartment?” He smiled. “Where you live is always where you are most vulnerable because it represents a possible choke point for an ambush. And I would not wish to surprise a man like you where he felt most vulnerable. Safer, I judged, to approach you on neutral ground, where you might even see me coming, ne?

…The children of God, being the children of the resurrection.… For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him. —Luke 20:36, 38 (KJV) EASTER: CELEBRATE I’d like to think that, unlike Peter, I wouldn't have denied Jesus three times, but my faith is tepid, sketchy, uncertain. I wish it were different. I wish, like my mother, I could hold on to my faith, no matter what. Weird thing is, I can accept the bizarre claim that an itinerant preacher in first-century Palestine was crucified like a common criminal, was dead and buried…but not buried for long. I can buy that—which, you gotta admit, is a pretty large story to swallow. And I can believe His message is a living one—not because I have that much faith but because it makes sense to me: We're here to help others so that “whenever you cared for one of the least of these, you did it for me.” Yessir. Roger. Understood. But that Someone could forgive my trespasses, my myriad short- comings, my irrational fuming, my weak-willed nature so that I can help others by forgiving them…no. No can do. My ego won’t allow it. This Easter, I think I’ve figured out at least one gift inherent in the Jesus story: It’s about letting go of ego, that ridiculous remnant from our hominid past, that lying leftover that says we’re in control, we need neither the world nor each other, thank you very much, that we don’t require (and therefore don’t deserve) forgiveness…my God. Just let it go. Let. It. Go. Bury the past; then roll away the stone and celebrate what’s risen in its place. Lord, this Easter, help rid me of my selfish ego. Granted, ego is easy and forgiveness is difficult…but today, of all days, I’m willing to try the hard way. —Mark Collins Digging Deeper: Mt 28:8–10; Lk 24:1–12; Jn 11:25–26

Who can comprehend how those whom God takes so early are chosen? Does not the early death of young Christians always appear to us as if God were plundering his own best instruments in a time in which they are most needed? Yet the Lord makes no mistakes. Might God need our brothers for some hidden service on our behalf in the heavenly world? We should put an end to our human thoughts, which always wish to know more than they can, and cling to that which is certain. Whomever God calls home is someone God has loved. “For their souls were pleasing to the Lord, therefore he took them quickly from the midst of wickedness” (Wisdom of Solomon 4). We know, of course, that God and the devil are engaged in battle in the world and that the devil also has a say in death. In the face of death we cannot simply speak in some fatalistic way, “God wills it”; but we must juxtapose it with the other reality, “God does not will it.” Death reveals that the world is not as it should be but that it stands in need of redemption. Christ alone is the conquering of death. Here the sharp antithesis between “God wills it” and “God does not will it” comes to a head and also finds its resolution. God accedes to that which God does not will, and from now on death itself must therefore serve God. From now on, the “God wills it” encompasses even the “God does not will it.” God wills the conquering of death through the death of Jesus Christ. Only in the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ has death been drawn into God’s power, and it must now serve God’s own aims. It is not some fatalistic surrender but rather a living faith in Jesus Christ, who died and rose for us, that is able to cope profoundly with death. 384 In life with Jesus Christ, death as a general fate approaching us from without is confronted by death from within, one’s own death, the free death of daily dying with Jesus Christ. Those who live with Christ die daily to their own will. Christ in us gives us over to death so that he can live within us. Thus our inner dying grows to meet that death from without. Christians receive their own death in this way, and in this way our physical death very truly becomes not the end but rather the fulfillment of our life with Jesus Christ. Here we enter into community with the One who at his own death was able to say, “It is finished.

Libertarians see these changes as gains for freedom. No longer under the thumb of traditional marriage and religion, people can make up their own minds about how to live their personal lives, believing what they wish about religion and morality. Maybe so, but that’s no basis for a free society. Codified rights offer limited protection. If the Supreme Court can find a right to same-sex marriage in the Constitution, then it can find anything, including dramatically different (and reduced) rights of speech, association, and religion. The most powerful limits to government power are found below and above political life: a strong culture of marriage and family, and robust, assertive religious institutions. A free society depends on strong family loyalties and faith’s indomitable resolve.

THIS IS the time the Bible and Holy Qur-an refer to as the “resurrection of the dead” (mentally dead or ignorant people) whom God wishes to make wise and set over the nations by His guidance and His infinite wisdom. After listening to what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was taught by Allah, there is nothing left for another Messenger to teach us of self, God and the devil. Messenger Elijah Muhammad’s message to us fulfills the Bible and Holy Qur-an for the last Messenger’s message is to bring us face to face with the knowledge of God and the devils, that we may make our choice as to whom we shall serve.

Maybe.” “You can’t retire.” I paused. When I spoke, my voice was quiet, not much more than a whisper. “I hope you’re not saying you might interfere.” He didn’t flinch. “There would be no need for me to interfere,” he said. “You don’t have retirement in you. I wish you could recognize that. What will you do, find an island somewhere, spend time on the beach catching up on all the books you’ve been missing? Join a go club? Anesthetize yourself with whisky when your restless memories refuse to permit sleep?

Even just that simple touch resurrects so many good memories for me and so many wishes for the future. That's how powerful first love can be, a transcendent force so powerful it could defy gravity itself.

And he mourned for her. He didn't wish to, but he did—he ached with the knowledge that the softness of their youth was gone forever, that the Juliette he remembered was long dead. He ached even more to think that though he was the one who had dealt the killing blow, he had still dreamed of her in these four years, of the Juliette whose laughter had rung along the riverside. It was a haunting. He had buried Juliette like a corpse beneath the floorboards, content to live with the ghosts that whispered to him in his sleep. Seeing her again was like finding the corpse beneath the floorboards to not only have resurrected, but to be pointing a gun right at his head.

Lazarus Saturday: The Longest Way by Stewart Stafford "Lazarus, come out!" Jesus said: A dead man awoke in a burial place, Wrapped head to foot on a stretcher; He shook away the cloth on his face. Four days dead, his soul was gone; His sisters berated Jesus's late arrival; The Lord did not doubt his power, From the afterlife came his survival. From a white light end to a dark revival, Life cascaded in decomposing flesh, His chest hurt as it rose and fell again, Bloated and blotchy skin alive afresh. Lazarus struggled to breathe in dusty air; His body was freezing and deathly pale; At first, he thought he had gone to God, The voice of his friend told another tale. Shuffling stiffly to the cave's womb exit, Newborn-blind to his second life; The Disciples rushed to unwrap him, His sisters embraced away their strife. Lazarus wanted to tell what he had seen, But was told it was not for mortal ears; His sisters had to respect this wish, Overjoyed to live to Methuselah's years. The word spread fast of this act; Of the Nazarene's immense power; That his reach could extend so far, To the world far past Babel's Tower. As the daughter of Jairus resurrected, Christ himself arose on the third day; Lazarus was in Death's grip tightest, Miracles that blood money cannot repay. © 2024, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.

She pressed her forehead down onto the cold, clean tiles. “Please undo what I’ve done, Lord,” she said. “I will never ask anything of you, ever again, if you just give me back the life of Gideon Nav.” “I can’t,” he said. He had a bittersweet, scratchy voice, and it was infinitely gentle. “I would very much like to. But that soul’s inside you now. If I tried to pull it out, I’d take yours with it and destroy both in the process. What’s done is done. Now you have to live with it.” She was empty. That was the terrible thing: there was nothing inside her but the sick and bubbling detestation of her House. Even the silence of her soul could not dilute the hatred that had fermented in her from the genesis of the Ninth House downward. Harrowhark picked herself up off the floor and looked her Emperor dead in his dark and shining eyes. “How dare you ask me to live with it?” The Emperor did not render her down to a pile of ash, as she partly wished he would. Instead, he rubbed at one temple, and he held her gaze, sombre and even. “Because,” he said, “the Empire is dying.” She said nothing. “If there had been any less need you would be sitting back home in Drearburh, living a long and quiet life with nothing to worry or hurt you, and your cavalier would still be alive. But there are things out there that even death cannot keep down. I have been fighting them since the Resurrection. I can’t fight them by myself.” Harrow said, “But you’re God.” And God said, “And I am not enough.

What can’t be stressed enough is that resurrection theory is about material bodies. A spiritual body may not be made of the gross matter of the flesh, but it is still made of matter. Hence it is a scientific phenomenon in the scientific world…and science of course has not found even one trace of any such bodies. In this view, God is a material being and so is heaven, so scientists could find a way to identify heaven, or blow it up, or kill God, or imprison him, or subject God and all the souls to massive bursts of deadly gamma rays…or whatever else. Equally, scientists could study these spiritual bodies and work out how to give us all one, regardless of the wishes of God. Once you place God, heaven and souls in the material plane, you have put religion completely at the mercy of science and in direct competition with it. There can only be one winner in that contest… and it ain’t “God”. Any religious person would have to be crazy to believe in resurrection theory because it is a materialist and hence scientific theory, capable of being scientifically refuted.

CHAPTER ONE The Entrance into Jerusalem and the Cleansing of the Temple 1. The Entrance into Jerusalem Saint John’s Gospel speaks of three Passover feasts celebrated by Jesus in the course of his public ministry: the first, which is linked to the cleansing of the Temple (2:13-25), the Passover of the multiplication of the loaves (6:4), and finally the Passover of his death and Resurrection (for example, 12:1, 13:1), which became “his” great Passover, the basis for the Christian celebration of Easter, the Christian Passover. The Synoptics contain just one Passover feast—that of the Cross and Resurrection; indeed, in Saint Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’ path is presented as a single pilgrim ascent from Galilee to Jerusalem. To begin with, it is an “ascent” in a geographical sense: the Sea of Galilee is situated about 690 feet below sea level, whereas Jerusalem is on average 2500 feet above. The Synoptics each contain three prophecies of Jesus’ Passion as steps in this ascent, steps that at the same time point to the inner ascent that is accomplished in the outward climb: going up to the Temple as the place where God wished “his name [to] dwell”, in the words of the Book of Deuteronomy (12:11, 14:23). The ultimate goal of Jesus’ “ascent” is his self-offering on the Cross, which supplants the old sacrifices; it is the ascent that the Letter to the Hebrews describes as going up, not to a sanctuary made by human hands, but to heaven itself, into the presence of God (9:24). This ascent into God’s presence leads via the Cross—it is the ascent toward “loving to the end” (cf. Jn 13:1), which is the real mountain of God. The immediate goal of Jesus’ pilgrim journey is, of course, Jerusalem, the Holy City with its Temple, and the “Passover of the Jews”, as John calls it (2:13).

For now let us note this: Jesus is indeed making a royal claim. He wants his path and his action to be understood in terms of Old Testament promises that are fulfilled in his person. The Old Testament speaks of him—and vice versa: he acts and lives within the word of God, not according to projects and wishes of his own. His claim is based on obedience to the mission received from his Father. His path is a path into the heart of God’s word. At the same time, through this anchoring of the text in Zechariah 9:9, a “Zealot” exegesis of the kingdom is excluded: Jesus is not building on violence; he is not instigating a military revolt against Rome. His power is of another kind: it is in God’s poverty, God’s peace, that he identifies the only power that can redeem. Let us return to the narrative. The donkey is brought to Jesus, and now something unexpected happens: the disciples lay their garments on the donkey. While Matthew (21:7) and Mark (11:7) simply say: “and he sat upon it”, Luke writes: “They set Jesus upon it” (19:35). This is the expression that is used in the First Book of Kings in the account of Solomon’s installation on the throne of his father, David. There we read that King David commanded Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah: “Take with you the servants of your lord, and cause Solomon my son to ride on my own mule, and bring him down to Gihon; and let Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet there anoint him king over Israel” (1 Kings 1:33

Whoever wishes to resurrect must first repent.

You’re the reason he’s dead. I was distracted thinking about you and he’s gone. You did this. It’s your fault. I hate you. Get out. I wish I’d never met you.

In the “grain of wheat” metaphor, Jesus insists if we wish to hold on to the throughline to eternity, we have to follow that line through death. We have to imagine death enough to see it not as some utterly aversive event we go away from or around, but instead as something recognizable enough to go through. When we thoughtfully stock our minds with images of death, we give the Spirit of Jesus the raw material to draw mental throughlines from death to resurrection.

But the hundred-plus years during which France and England fought are characterized by a deeper conflict than mere territorial battles: “The King of England,” says Jean Froissart, “had long wished for an opportunity to assert his right to the crown of France.” When Philip V had resurrected the old Salic Law to take the throne of France away from his niece, he had inadvertently provided a way for the English king to take the French thone. Philip V’s end run around his niece’s right to rule France had led to the barring of his own daughter, his sole child, from the throne, and the appointment of the new House of Valois in the place of Hugh Capet’s descendants—leaving Edward III, son of Philip’s sister Isabelle, as the sole remaining monarch of direct Capetian descent.

Think of Oscar Wilde’s wonderful scene in his play Salome, when Herod hears reports that Jesus of Nazareth has been raising the dead. “I do not wish him to do that,” says Herod. “I forbid him to do that. I allow no man to raise the dead. This man must be found and told that

-Psalm 118:1, 5-6, 19, 21-22 All our life is sown with tiny thorns that produce in our hearts a thousand involuntary movements of hatred, envy, fear, impatience, a thousand little fleeting disappointments, a thousand slight worries, a thousand disturbances that momentarily alter our peace of soul. For example, a word escapes that should not have been spoken. Or someone says something that offends us. A child inconveniences you. A bore stops you. You don't like the weather. Your work is not going according to plan. A piece of furniture is broken. A dress is torn. I know that these are not occasions for practicing very heroic virtue. But they would definitely be enough to acquire it if we really wished to.3 When I am able to thank the Lord for an inconvenience, I believe he chips away at my mountainous need to be in control. "Thanksgiving," says Patrick D. Miller Jr., "whether to other persons or God, is an inherent reminder that we are not autonomous or self-sufficient ... Praise to God does that in a fundamental way as it directs our love away from self and all human sufficiency."4 In my case it will take a lot more thanks and a lot more chipping away of my self-sufficiency before an adjective like "heroic" could even remotely apply to me. A Thanksgiving Sacrifice Mary Lou and I attend our parish's contemporary Mass at 6 p.m. on Sundays, and I pray often at daily Mass. The heart of the Mass is a celebration of the Eucharist, a representation of Christ's once-for-all sacrifice that rescued us from sin and united us to God. The word "eucharist" derives from a Greek root that means "thanksgiving." At Mass I enjoy the privilege of participating in Christ's eternal sacrifice, offering myself with him in thanksgiving to the Father. I am expressing my gratitude for his giving me a share in his divine life through the death and resurrection of

The practice of prayer, if it is going to amount to anything more than wish lists and complaints, requires a recovery of personal, relational, revelational language in both our listening and our speaking.

And you know you are not the first, To bite into her dimples, And sleep in her eyes, Whisper in her ears long deep into the nights, But does that even matter? And you know you are not the first, Who had the honour of wiping her tears, And sucking on her finger tips gently, And taking her to bed like a child in arms, But does that even matter? And you know you are not the first, Worthy of her warm hugs on winter nights, And you know that you are not the first, She shared her kisses and coffees, Chocolates and love candles, shower and bed with. But does that even matter? Now that you have the chance of a lifetime, To be her gardner, To be her farmer, To resurrect the fallen princess again… And you know you are not the first, She gave her heart. But does that even matter? How you wish you would be the last, To stay forever in her arms, Or die waiting for that moment… --- You know You Are Not Her First

Seduction is the direct and murderous irradiation of the object, the end of metaphor, the strategy of an enchanted world, the triumphant resurrection of an illusion which puts an end to the dialectical swoonings of sense and the all too naïve ruses of history. If you wish to speak of fiction, the text must obliterate all reference. If you are speaking of simulation, the text must scoff at meaning, while at the same time being completely true. If you are speaking of seduction, language has to pervert something or other in elliptical ways. Otherwise, what would language be there for? Language is a woman: it seduces you by metamorphosing into what it says. It is a woman also in that it will never stop taking its revenge if it does not succeed in seducing you. It will avenge itself by saying only what you make it say, like a woman who only satisfies what you ask of her.

Crucifixion & Resurrection Puritan O LORD, I marvel that Thou shouldst become incarnate, be crucified, dead, and buried. The sepulchre calls forth my adoring wonder, for it is empty and Thou art risen; the four-fold Gospel attests it, the living witnesses prove it, my heart's experience knows it. Give me to die with Thee that I may rise to new life, for I wish to be as dead and buried to sin, to selfishness, to the world; that I might not hear the voice of the charmer, and might be delivered from his lusts. O Lord, there is much ill about me – crucify it, much flesh within me – mortify it. Purge me from selfishness, the fear of man, the love of approbation, the shame of being thought old-fashioned, the desire to be cultivated or modern. Let me reckon my old life dead because of crucifixion, and never feed it as a living thing. Grant me to stand with my dying Saviour, to be content to be rejected, to be willing to take up unpopular truths, and to hold fast despised teachings until death. Help me to be resolute and Christ-contained. Never let me wander from the path of obedience to Thy will. Strengthen me for the battles ahead. Give me courage for all the trials, and grace for all the joys. Help me to be a holy, happy person, free from every wrong desire, from everything contrary to Thy mind. Grant me more and more of the resurrection life: may it rule me, may I walk in its power, and be strengthened through its influence.

Expressive association In the United States, expressive associations are groups that engage in activities protected by the First Amendment – speech, assembly, press, petitioning government for a redress of grievances, and the free exercise of religion. In Roberts v. United States Jaycees, the U.S. Supreme Court held that associations may not exclude people for reasons unrelated to the group's expression. However, in the subsequent decisions of Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Group of Boston, the Court ruled that a group may exclude people from membership if their presence would affect the group's ability to advocate a particular point of view. The government cannot, through the use of anti-discrimination laws, force groups to include a message that they do not wish to convey. However, this concept does not now apply in the University setting due to the Supreme Court's ruling in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez (2010), which upheld Hastings College of Law policy that the school's conditions on recognizing student groups were viewpoint neutral and reasonable. The policy requires student organizations to allow "any student to participate, become a member, or seek leadership positions, regardless of their status or beliefs" and so, can be used to deny the group recognition as an official student organization because it had required its members to attest in writing that "I believe in: The Bible as the inspired word of God; The Deity of our Lord, Jesus Christ, God's son; The vicarious death of Jesus Christ for our sins; His bodily resurrection and His personal return; The presence and power of the Holy Spirit in the work of regeneration; [and] Jesus Christ, God's son, is Lord of my life." The Court reasoned that because this constitutional inquiry occurs in the education context the same considerations that have led the Court to apply a less restrictive level of scrutiny to speech in limited public forums applies. Thus, the college's all-comers policy is a reasonable, viewpoint-neutral condition on access to the student organization forum.

There is thus a twofold restriction put upon pure truth: on the one hand an aspect of the truth is invested with the character of integral truth, and on the other hand an absolute character is attributed to the relative. Furthermore this standpoint of expediency carries with it the negation of all those things which, being neither accessible nor indispensable to everyone indiscriminately, lie for that reason beyond the purview of the theological perspective and must be left outside it—hence the simplifications and symbolical syntheses peculiar to every exoterism. Lastly, we may also mention, as a particularly striking feature of these doctrines, the identification of historical facts with principial truths and the inevitable confusions resulting therefrom. For example, when it is said that all human souls, from that of Adam to the departed souls of Christ’s own contemporaries, must await his descent into hell in order to be delivered, such a statement confuses the historical with the cosmic Christ and represents an eternal function of the Word as a temporal fact for the simple reason that Jesus was a manifestation of this Word, which is another way of saying that in the world where this manifestation took place, Jesus was truly the unique incarnation of the Word. Another example may be found in the divergent views of Christianity and Islam on the subject of the death of Christ: apart from the fact that the Koran, by its apparent denial of Christ’s death, is simply affirming that Christ was not killed in reality— which is obvious not only as regards the divine nature of the God- Man, but also as regards his human nature, since it was resurrected—the refusal of Muslims to admit the historical Redemption, and consequently the facts that are the unique terrestrial expression of universal Redemption as far as Christian humanity is concerned, simply denotes that in the final analysis Christ did not die for those who are “whole”, who in this case are the Muslims insofar as they benefit from another terrestrial form of the one and eternal Redemption. In other words, if it is true in principle that Christ died for all men—in the same way that the Islamic Revelation is principally addressed to everyone—in fact he died only for those who must and do benefit from the means of grace that perpetuate his work of Redemption; hence the traditional distance separating Islam from the Christian Mystery is bound to appear exoterically in the form of a denial, exactly in the same way that Christian exoterism must deny the possibility of salvation outside the Redemption brought about by Jesus. However that may be, although a religious perspective may be contested ab extra, that is to say, in the light of another religious perspective deriving from a different aspect of the same truth, it remains incontestable ab intra inasmuch as its capacity to serve as a means of expressing the total truth makes of it a key to that truth. Moreover it must never be forgotten that the restrictions inherent in the dogmatist point of view express in their own way the divine Goodness, which wishes to prevent men from going astray and which gives them what is accessible and indispensable to everyone, having regard to the mental predispositions of the human collectivity concerned.

in you life, to let you know that you are from the dead quickened by the Spirit, made like unto Jesus. Glory to God! Oh, the word resurrection! I wish I could say it just on parallel lines with the word Jesus. They very harmoniously go together. Jesus is resurrection, and to know Jesus in this resurrection power is simply to see that you have no more to be dead but alive unto God by the Spirit.

As our Blessed Mother prayerfully pondered the life and death of her Son that Holy Saturday, her heart would have been filled with a peaceful excitement and joy.  She may not have known exactly how His Resurrection would unfold, but she knew with conviction that He would soon return to her. She did not allow despair to enter her Immaculate Heart for even a moment.  Instead, she kept a prayerful vigil for her Son and awaited the fulfillment of His promise that He would rise on the third day.  She had heard Him say this and she knew it was true.  Her only duty now was to wait in vigilant prayer and expectation. Hope is a supernatural gift from God.  It’s not just wishful thinking or optimism.  Hope is a gift by which God makes an interior promise to each one of us.  The promises He makes are the perfect revelation of His divine will.  As we hear Him speak His promises, we must respond with faith. Reflect, today, upon this most sacred scene of Holy Saturday. While many were filled with despair and confusion, our Blessed Mother continued her vigil of hope.  She knew, without any doubt, that glorious things were still to come. She knew that her Son had completed His mission of salvation and was on the verge of restoring new life to all who would turn to Him in their need.  Reflect upon your own hope in the promise of God in your life.  Allow the example of our Blessed Mother to inspire you.  Allow her prayers to transform you.  Do not doubt for a moment that God has great things in mind for you.  For those who believe, the Resurrection is always but a moment away.   My dearest Mother, allow me to keep vigil with you as you waited in perfect hope for the Resurrection of your divine Son.  Help me to understand the beauty of every virtue alive in your Immaculate Heart. Help me to understand that the suffering you endured brought forth the perfection of virtue in your life, especially the virtue of divine hope. My dear Mother, pray for me that I may be open to the promises of your Son in my life.  Pray that I may hear Him speak to me and reveal His perfect plan.  May I trust in that plan, even when all earthly hope seems lost.  May I follow your own Immaculate example and trust in your dear Son always. My resting Lord, as You lay in the tomb that Holy Saturday, You filled the heart of Your dear mother with an abundance of hope as she awaited the fulfillment of Your promise.  You also promise me, and all who believe, that the sufferings of life are not the end.  Your Resurrection is before

Cold wintry night ,was born a child through a woman pure, with divine intervention and a mission to cure, to heal the broken hearted, to bind up their wounds. He lived as man for me to die for me, to shed His Blood as an offering to wash me clean, to claim me back unto Himself as One in God my Creator, and So is He my Jesus Divine, One God in all men. He is ! He was ! and will always be ! At His birth on earth, heaven rejoiced, with His sacrifice heaven said it is accomplished , at His resurrection Heaven shouted 'restored' and He will come again, for which Heaven plans a banquet. And this is the Christmas Story

What man and woman, if they ever gave serious thought to what having children inevitably involves, would ever have them?” asked Frederick Buechner. “Yet what man and woman, once having had them and loved them, would ever want it otherwise?” Buechner imagined what it would be like to wish away magically the pain associated with someone he loves. He couldn’t do it, “because the pain is so much a part of the love that the love would be vastly diminished, unrecognizable, without it.”52 Indeed, love for one’s children without pain would be as unrecognizable as a resurrected Christ without nail scars.

There is no reason in principle why the question, what precisely happened at Easter, cannot be raised by any historian of any persuasion. Even if some Christians might wish to rule it off limits, they have (presumably) no a priori right to tell other historians, whether Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, New Agers, gnostics, agnostics, or anyone else, what they may and may not study.

Our desires correspond precisely to God’s plans. It’s not that we want something, so we engage in wishful thinking that what we want exists. It’s the opposite—the reason we want it is precisely because God has planned for it to exist. As we’ll see, resurrected people living in a resurrected universe isn’t our idea—it’s God’s.

But once a dead God, always a dead God, even resurrected. The Son must have the taste of death forever in his mouth. The Trinity must be tainted by it; there must be a certain stench at the right hand of God the Father. The horror must be real. Why would God wish that upon Himself? Why not leave death to mortals? Why make dirty what is beautiful, spoil what is perfect? - Love. That was his answer.

Right now was when I wished my mother had left me with some sort of telepathic magic and not just resurrection as a parting gift.

Jesus Foretells His Death and Resurrection 31Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes and be killed and after three days rise again. 32He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” 34He called the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “If any wish to comem after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel,n will save it. 36For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 38Those who are ashamed of me and of my wordso in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.

Blood of Olympus, chapter 56, pg. 486 & 487 "So where were you?" Will demanded. He was wearing a green surgeon's shirt with jeans and flip-flops, which was probably not standard hospital protocol. "What do you mean?" Nico asked. "I've been stuck in the infirmary for, like, two days. You don't come by. You don't offer to help" "I... what? Why would you want a son of Hades in the same room with people you're trying to heal? why would *anyone* want that?" "You can't help out a friend? Maybe cut bandages? Bring me a soda or a snack? Or just a simple *Hows it going, Will?* You don't think I could stand to see a friendly face?" "What... *my* face?" Those words simply didn't make sense together: *Friendly face. Nico di Angelo.* "You're so dense" Will noted. "I hope you got over that nonsense about leaving Camp Half-Blood" "I一yeah. I did. I mean, I'm staying" "Good. So you may be dense, but you're not an idiot." "How can you even talk to me like that? Don't you know I can summon zombies and skeletons and一" "Right now you couldn't summon a wish bone without melting into a puddle of darkness, di Angelo," Will said. "I told you, no more Underworld-y stuff, doctor's orders. You owe me at least three days of rest in the infirmary. Starting *now.*" Nico felt like a hundred skeletal butterflies were resurrecting in his stomach. "Three days? I一I suppose that would be okay." "Good