Atotlement society went on as before; the same kinds of bitterness and meanness and hatreds went on as befiore. In death on the cross he handed over all tlre meaning of his human life to tlre Fatheç this is his prayer. The Father has not accomplisH his will througþ any success of Jesus; fesus is left witlr nothingbut his love and his obedþnce, and this is the prayer to tlre 9 Father to work through his failure. And, of course, the answer to that prayer is the resurrection, when the Father through the dead but risen Christ does accomplish his loving will The Easter Vigt the mystery of new life for human creatures- Through the risen Christ the Spirit is poured out upon all men, or, to put it another way, the relationship between Jesus Father, tÌrc Father, is extended all men. and the berween the Son and to . . . because it is only Christian men failed, Beûore his death Jesus had tried, but in the end to bring tlre guard even heathen thinç. Spirit of love to a s¡nall group of disciples; now through him the Fatlrer pours t}le Spirit throughout tlre world; by this the world is to be trans- G. K. Chesterton formed into a community of love, the Kingdom of God. the time of the fulI moon at the Equinox the people of the the f,t þring Christian prayer is never simply the appeal by the creature to extinguish all their heanh-ftres and every lamp and dialogue AMessiani creâtor. The cross and resurrection are the eternal of Father I Llantern and source of light from amonçt them. They gather as the screen history, what it looks like in and Son proþted on to of tlren on the hillside ât midnight and in the darkness a Holy Man strikes If want Trinity looks like be filled with the hisory. you to know that the tlre new ñ¡e from ttre rock of flint and with this a great sacred ffre is Look when reflected Holy Spirit and at the cross. The fünity, in our made to blaze. This new fire from darkness represents, for the Messiani, water, looks strange, history, like something reflected in rippling pretty tlre rebirth of Messia, their dying god, and also the rebirth of the year just as the human being in our history looks strange, being despised and and the coming of new life out of dartness and winter. Erce homo. crucified: An image of the risen god in the form of a tall candle is then lighted dialogue, AII our prayer is some kind of sharing in that eternal the from the fire to symbolise his return to life from the dead" and adorned represented by the cross: this is the only prayer there is. The exchange with cerain sacred sþs by which past and future and all time is made Eucharist is, ofcourse, the principal sacrarnent ofCalvary, but all our to centre on this time and this place. l-d by the flame of the imaç the some human voice of the Son prayer is kind of participation in the of whole throng then moves in procession from the fìre to the place of addressing his is by sharing in this sacrfüial prayer that God Father. lt assembly. As they go they take new flame from the image for their own we enter into our divine life and take our part in the mystery of the torches and lanterns and tlrey dance and shout the praises of Messia'the I shall say more when we to look at the mysteries Trinity. of this come of light of the world'. resurection, the mysteries Easter night. of lr¡/hen the crowd is once more assembled Messia is erected amongst green boughs and flowers and other signs of fertility and a Holy Man addresses it in song bringing this Holy Night to coincide with th€ m¡hic nights of creation and of the birth of the Messiani people, the daylight night of the death and rebirth of God which, for the Messiani, is also the death and rebirth of Man. This is followed by the solemn chanting of the creation m¡hs and other leçnds of the sacred story of the Messiani, always with the theme of darkness and the conquest of darkness by light. Then, while nno Singing Men start an hypnotic chant naming tlre na¡nes of the holy ones of the Messianic past, a greât bath of water is prepared which is to receive power from the Fire and Light so that it will become the l¡Vaters of Life. Those who are to be initiated into the roo lol Ato¡pment The fu¿r hgíl: tfn mlrcry oJ mw l!þ mysteries of the Messiani must pass,h-"gh this water, and, moreover, shadow, but to something very different from the original celebrarion. ali the people are splashed with it, for they believe that this will bring By hindsight I rhink we can now see that if the Vigil was ro rake a hold on them fertility and renewed life during tl,e coming year- people, if it was to form the centre of their consciousness and The climax is reached with the common sacred banquet of the Dying unconscious, to be the central image for them of the meaning of their 'Water and Rising GodÀ4an. Now from Fire and Light and we Pass to existence, it could not afiord to lose its magic. Bread anã Wine consecrated and made holy, for in consuming them This, I would complain, is just what happened in the l97O Roman Missal. Before the restoration, just thùty years ago, the 'Vigil' was a very toçther the Messiani believe that they are lysticall) devouring the very fleih and blood of tl¡e Dying God: their bodies are thus made one with ramshackle afiair ând its meaning was badly obscured by tl* his and share in his new risen life. When this myst€ry has been enactd preposterous practice of celebrating it on Holy Sarurday moming the entire throng, men, women and children, make their way to another instead of at night. But, still, irs strange power lay in its complexity and place for cocoa and buns. above all in tlre way it related the Christian mystery to very deep human things in a úsual and almost tactile way, ro srrange things lurking in the depths of human consciousness. To put ir âs simply as possible: the old I think this could stand as a sample outsider's account of what goes on in Easter Vigil was a very sexy affair, and the modern one looks as if Mrs the averaç suburban Roman Catholic church on Easter night. l,et us Mary Whitehouse has been gqning at ir. The 1956 restoration, which consider what it means. brought th€ ViFl back to its proper place in the middle of the nighÇ Vy'eek as really did retain the riches of the old liturgr. It was, thinh the It is quite natural to see the three great days of Holy tt": *T I greatest in a kind of passion'play, following ttre story of the passion, death and liturgical creation of the modern Church, and founeen years later we resurrection of Christ as three successive events. There is no harm in pretcy well threw it away. Maybe I exaggerare here, but let me give you looking at it this way, but if we look at the history of Holy Week' æ how an example. che htõrgr devebpèd, we may see more deeply into the mystery than In the 1956 restoration' as in the ancient rite, rhe baptismal font is that. seen in essentially sexual terms. tt is seen as the womb of Mother In the first place, the Easter Vigil is not iust Act 3 of a sequence- It is Church fenilised by tlre enrry of the Holy Spirit, and rhis is seen in the the oldesc *as for quite a long time the only celebration of Easter- phallic ûorm of the lighted paschal candle entering the waters. Christ's "nd From the very earliest days we know abouc, the night ofthe resurrection fertilisation of the Virgin Mother Church by bringing her the Holy Spirit was celebrated quite aPart from any comnemoration of Thursday or is compared in this liturgr ro cbe fertilising of the primaeval warers, rhe Friday. The Easter Vigil is complete in itself: it is not iust a happy ending waters of chaos, by the breath of the Spirit, in the reading from tagged on to the mystery of the Last Supper. and the Cross- Genesis I . So the bringing to new birth of bel¡evers in the womb of the ttre tiruryl.at reformers associated with Vatican II, seeing th¡ eivotal- Church is united with the bringing rc binh of rhe universe- In the rite importance of che Vigil, the 'Mother of all Vigits'and the central poìnt of the priest is instructed to lower the lighted candle inro the baptismal thé Church's year, quite rightþ wanæd to make it more available to water in three staggs, penetrating more deeply each time, and each time people. They hoped it would become fior all Chrisdans råe great singing on a higher note: Dellr:endat in honc plenirudinem Jontis vinus tebbration. Now the results, as is well known' have been very Spiritus Sancti. k is quite plain that an impression of mounting excite- disappointing. ln Britain and in lreland this has k" PldJ du9 to ment is meant to be visibly, tactually felt. It was a very stranç and inerãa- Whaiever we say or write or preach, people still feel, as their primitive ceremony in the middle of the night. Finally, when the candle parents did, that Holy Week centres on Good Friday aftemoon. For a has reached its deepest point, the priest is ro blow rhree times on the sur- iery large number of people the Easter Vigil is stiil 'Midnight Mass' at face of the wa.er in the form of the letter ú lpti¡ (lhere are liturgisæ Easier, Ã kind of pale imitation of Midnight Mass at Christmas. who say this is no more than the sign of the cross but others see it as rhe I think the Vatican II reforms are Partly responsible for this. In the initial of puycåe, life.) The priest ¡hen continues: totamque huius oquae interests of making the Vigil more available they have shortened it (and substantiam regenerondi Jecundet eflectu; the latin brings out the full that in itself was no bad thing) but in shortening it they have badly reson¿urce ol regenerandi and;þcundet. impoverished it. The magnificent restoration of che-EasterVigil of 1956' As the candle penetrates the water it is said to be entering lranc a truly awe-inspiring piece of liturgr, has been reduced' not to a mere plenirudinemJonfis: the 'fullness' (fem-) suggests the fullness of mother

l02 l03 Atonement The fuær Vìgil: the myúery oJ rcw $e eanh, the coming pregnancy of the womb of Modrer Church, and this evening), a symbolism made use of by Christ himself, by the evangelists womb is to be fertilised by the vim¡s which is the Holy Spirit - the word, and by the liturgr. of course, comes from yir, man. The Holy Spirit is the virility througþ [¡t us look at one detail of this. The work of creation begins on the which rhe fullness of tlre womb is pregnant with new lfe,'in order thar ñrst day, that is to say kturdoy night. This is when the Spirit of God the whole substance of this water may become fecund for rebinh'- moves over the waters, and fertilises them, and also when God creates Now contrast this with the l97O version as we have it in English:'The light and separates it from darkness. The work of creation is fìnished on priest may'(he doesn't have to)'lower the Paschal Candle into tlre water the sixth day; and the seventh day, from Friday evening, is the day of either once or three times as he continues, "We ask you, Father, wich rest, of consummation. This, of course, is the point of the Friday on your Son, send your Holy Spirit on the waters of this font" '. It's a nice which Christ is said to die. Like God at the end of his creation, he rests litde reference to the Tiinity but all that primitive fertility symbolism is on Friday nighc 'k is consummated', he says. The Divine Office ggne. 'He holds cl¡e candle in the water and says: "May all who are (Tènebrae') of Holy Saturday is full of images of sleep: it begins 'ln peace buried with Christ in the death of baptism rise also with him to newness itself t will sleep and take my rest'. Throughout the sabbath day he rests of lfe".' An unexceprtionable bit of theologr; but you see what I mean in the tomb. The point is stressed byJohn: the body must not remain on about Mary tffhitehouse. the cross on the sabbath,'fior that was a great sabbath day'. After the I rhink it is tragic that we are now in dançr of losing the richness of sabbath we come again to Saturday night, in which we have once more the Easter celebration that was briefly restored to us thirty years agg. the night of the beginning of creation, and that is when the resurrection Instead we have a cut?rice ceremony tailored to the imagination, or occurs. The day ofthe resurrection is the first day ofthe new week; as lack of imagination, of some Euro.theologians, and ñItered down to us che Fathers of the Church used to say, the'Eighth Day'of the week. The by a committee dedicated to putting the wlple thing into ttre kind of new beginning of creation fóllows on the completion of the old with tÌ¡e suburban English guarantd not to offend anybody by violence or sex death of Christ. The Vigil of Easter Saturday night represents the Eighth or mystery. Here my complaint ends. Day, the New Creation. The first of the baptismal readings is the creation-myth from From the earliest times this is what the Church has celebrated every Genesis l: 'ln the beginning God creatd the heavens and the earth. The Sunday. The early Jewish Christians, after observing the sabbath earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the throughout Saturday, would gather to observe the feast of the Lord's deep. And the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. And resurrection on Saturday night or Sunday morning. In spite of the Lord's God said "Let there be light" and there was light. And God separated the Day Observance Society and in spite of those Ulster Unionists who used light from darkness'. Here are all the fundamental images of the Vigil: to put padlocks on children's swings on a Sunday, the Day of the Lord is the Spirit of creativity and fertility on the waters, the light and the something quite distinct from tlre sabbath. The first man who combined darkness. This poem represents God as making the world and all its the two to make Sunday into a day of rest was the Emperor Constantine inhabitants in a week. Happily, apoloçtes have long ago stopped trying of ambiguous memory; and then the resting was essentially a matter of co convince us that this'realþ means' six stages or geological epochs or closing the law couns because it was thought inappropriate to torture wh¿tever. They have stopped that it was a primitive and "ll€rg people on the day of the resurrection. unsophisticated way of explaining how the world came into being. We So the Easter Vigil has no immediate connection with Holy Thursday all now recognise that it is a poem written in what, if an¡hing was a and Good Friday. It is the Christian Sunday writ larç. The earliest racher decadent period of civilisation, and, of course, the poet meant Christians began by meeting each week on the Day of the Lord for the exacdy what he said. He is talking about a week and his imagery reading of scripture and the breaking of bread, the celebration of the depends on this. The ftrst and most obvious point is that God is Lord's supper; and fairly soon, we do not know quite how soon, the representd as ffnishing his creation in six days and then resting on the great [,ord's Day, at the time of the Passover, the anniversary of the sabbath. The sabbath rest is interpreted in this poem as a celebration of, resurrection, became a special feast; and that was the vigil and feast of and even a sharing in, God's completion of his creation. lt represents Easter. something being finished, something consurrunatd. The creation poem The rest of Holy Week, as I expect you know, developed from special proúdes a perrnanent symbolism for each day of the week (or rather for ceremonies connectd with the Holy Places in Jerusalem, and that really each night of the week, for the Hebrew day lasts from evening to was something a little like a passion-play. It was a commemoration of the

l04 l05 Atotpment The Eose¡ kgîl: the ry*ery oJ new lfe events of the passion and cross, and the veneration of whatwas believed Similarly, while Luke in Àcts has the first sending of the Holy Spirit from to be the cross itself. These celebrations were clearly exciting, drarnatic the risen Christ at Pentecost, ñfty days after the passion, for John it is on and impressive - we know about them from the letters of a veС tlre cross that Jesus first 'breathed forth his Spiút'. I do not think thæ enterprising fourth-century nun called Etlreria who travelled to the Holy John had the slightest intention of denying an historical sequence of land and described them in interesting letters to her communicy. Soon a events (any more tìan he meant to deny all those miracles and parables version of the ceremonies spread throughout the Church, and Holy that he never mentions); it is simply that he uses the stnrcture he gives to Week was gradually formed. the life of Jesus to bring out the meaning of what occurred. ln any case, I have said all this not by way of a lecture on licurgical history but whatever we think we can discover about the historical events, we ned þcause it raises an important question about how we are to undershnd to be clear that the cross and the resurrection are the one mystery and the resurrection. Are we to see the Easter Vigil as complete in itself or as that we misunderstand each of them if we take them in isolation. Act 3 in a series? Similarly, are we to see the resurrection as something The cross, of course, is primarily about the failure ofJesus, about the complece in itself or as the ñnal act of a series? He was cruciñed; he died; collapse of his mission and about his identification with the most miser- he was buúed; on the third day he rose from the dead: are we to see rhis able of people. Because of the cross, whatever our sufferings, whatever as a sequence of events all on the same level? Cenainly this seems the betrayals we have to face, and whatever tragedy or misery we are caugþt simplest way to see it, but a meditarion on the lirurgr of Holy Week may up in, we can say not onþ that God knows and understands and pities suggest other thoughts. The Easter Vigil we might think is not rhe com- us, but.that he knows about it from personal experience, that he has memoration of the last of a series of events but rather a celebration of compassion in the original sense of 'suffering with'. It is not only that as the meaning of tÌ¡e whole series. It may be as though we had a passion- creator he must be present to all sufferers - and more present than they play chat re-enacted the evenrs of the passion, and then another play are to themselves - but that he himself has gone through it; he has enacting the meaning of the whole thing. sufiered not only in our suffering but in his own sufiering alongside This brlngs us to a question much discussed by Catholic scholars and ours. Because of the cross God is a fellow-sufferer with us, one of us; others: should we see the resunection as an historical event in the same because of the cross we cân have pity on God, b" *.ry for him. This sense as thè crucifixion or burial but slmply following them in time? Was astounding doctrine is not, of course, available to those who deny tlre the resurrection an historical evenc distinct from the death ofChrist? I literal diviniry of the suffering man Jesus. Pity for God is sometlingwell want to stress that this is something debated amongsr Catholic scholars understood by, for example, the indiçnous lndian Christians of Latin and theologians as well as orÌ¡ers. None of them wish ro deny that tle America, with their tradition of intense concencration on the suffering resurrection took place; the quescion is simply its relationship to history. Christ, che suffering God. It is an aspect of Catholicism that used to be Was it something that happened to the co¡pse of Ch¡st in the tomb as treated rather patronisingly by Europeans, who saw it as some kind of truly as the crucifixion and death happened to the living body of Christ vestige of pre{hristian thinking, but as it begins to make its impact on on the cross? To pur my own cards on rhe table, I think that it was. I Iatin American theologr, in particular liberation theologr, tlre results think that there was an event other thân rhe crucifixion in consequence are mrìy astonishing. of which tlre body of Chrisr was not ro be found in the tomb but is rrans- The cross, then, is primarily about the defeat of God, but of course it is fìgured and glorified. I just want to indicate tlar rhere are perfectly good also a sþ of criumph. In his preface to the Restored Holy Week Lirurgr and devout Catholics who believe. in the realiry of the resurrection as of 1956, Cardinal Cicognani speaks of the cross âs nostrae redemptionis ñrmly as I do but would put things differencly. trophaeum, the trophy of our redemption, and t}re words are singularþ The resurrection was a distinct event from tlre crucifixion of Jesus but well chosen. A trophy is a sign of victory, but more than that- Originatly not, I shall suggest, a discinct evenr of rhe same sorr. I think it was an a trophy was something very deñnite: ic was a wooden post or stake to event whose whole point was to show the meaning of rhe cross. The best which you fastened the spoils that you had taken from the enemy. That picture of t}re resurrection is the cross. It is the evançlist John who is exocd¡what the cross is. Nailed to this post is a human being in whom comes nearest ro idenriSing cross and resurrection. For him rhey are all humanity has been wrested from the enemy, from death and sin. both the 'lifting up' of Jesus and he does nor wanr ro make it clear Aegnavit a ligno Deus, we sing: God rules, reigns, from the wood of the whether he is speaking of rhe cross or the resurrection. They are both cross. It is the sigrr, the sacrament, of the power and triumph of God and tlre 'hour' of Jesus, the consummarion of his mission from ¡he Father. man over deajh.

l06 t07 Atorcment The Eo*er Vìgíl: the myíery oJ rcw l!þ .Western The popular practice which makes the cruciffx tlre cenrral soleþ letting things be, and our love is a faint image of that. The cross Christian emblem - I mean the actual crucifix repres€nringJesus dying does r¡<¡t show us some temporary weakness of God that is cancelled out on the cross - is, it seems to me, entirely sound. It is an image of the by the resurrection. It says perrnanent about God: not that weakness of God and the foolishness of God and the helplessness of God God eternally suffers but that the eternal power of God is love; and this which is greater than the strength and wisdom of men. I am sure that as expres*d in history must be suffering. wlren Paul said that the weakness of God is stronger than rhe strength of The cross, then is an ambiguous symbol of wealaress and triumph and men he did not mean that God is so strong that even his weakness is it is iust as important to see tlre ambiguity in the resurrection. If the stronger tlran our strength: he meant that the power of God loolc like cross is not sraighúorward failure, neither is the resurrection straight- weakness; and weakness - not the weakness of ineffectiveness but the forward triumph. The resurrecti,on is primarily about victory, as the weakness of love - is our best picture of the power of God. From cross is primarily about failure, but the victory is not unarnbiguous; this creation itself right through to redemption the power of God is is brought out very clearly in the stories of the appearances of the risen exercised not in manipulating and interfering with things but in letting Christ. them be, because dre power of God is the power of love. The pure triumph of the resurrection belongs to the Last Day, to the The cross, then, is an ambiguous symboL a symbol both of failure and Parousia, the ffnal consummation when we shall all share in Christ's of rriumph; or, rather, a symbol of triumph through the failure of Christ resurrection. That will not, however, be in any sense an event in history in love. lVhat you give someone when you give them love is the gift of but ratlrer the end of history. It could rx) more be an event enclosed by yourself- And what does that mean? What it means is that you give them history than the creation could be an event enclosed by time. But when space. You give drem a place where they can be themselves. To give we look at resurection as within history, when we look at Christ's someone love is to give her herself, to give him himself, to let him be. resurrection from the tomb, it is ambiguous. lmpersonal thinç, chairs and tables and sticks and stones, have no May I say something a little enigmatic here? We can think of Chrisr's sp¡rce, no emptiness around them. They are hedged and humped around resurrection, if we like, as the-jfira resurrection, the ffrst-fruits of the by other things. When you come co the end of this thing ttrere is another dead, that is to be followed by ours when we will þin him later on. That thing immediaæly outside it, so to speak. There is no space in the is one simple and obvious way of looking ac it. But perhaps we could impersonal world, it is merely that some things are thinner than others. think of his resurrection and ours as r¡r¿ resurrection, the victory of love Now, we too can be hedçd and cribbed and cabined and confined by over death, seen either within history (that is Christ's resurrection) or things and by odrer people. What gives us elbow room, whar beyond history (that is the resurrection). '"Your brother" said gives us çneral *I space to grow and become ourselves, is the love that comes to us from Iesus to Martha "will rise again". Martha said know he will rise again anotlrcr. I-ove is the space in which to expand, and it is always a gft. t. at the resurrection at the last day". Jesus said: "l am the resurrection. If this sense we receive ourselves at úre hands of others. Of course this is anyone believes in me, even though he dies he will live, and whoever true in innumerable ways - we have to be born of others, fior a start - lives and believes in me will never die".'Christ's resurrection from the but our growth, our personal development, also takes place on\ in tlre tomb then would be just what the resurrection of mankind, the ñnal space that others provide by their love. It is a space that we cannot iust consummation of human history, looks like when proiected within take fior granted but which, in another sense, we can only take for history itself, just as the cross is what God's crearive love looks like when grantd to us by someone who loves us. projected within history itself. Christ's resurrection is the sacrament of It is because of the love of parents and others that children are able to the last times- grow and become themselves; and of course in the absence of this love I suggest that we need to bring to bear on the resurrection something they fail. To give love is to grve the precious gift of nothing, space. To like the kind of thinking rhat Catholics have traditionally brought to bear give love is to let be. on the Eucharist. Just as tle transformæion of tlre bread and wine The power of Cod is pre-eminently the power to let rhings be. 'Ler involves no physical or chemical chanç in them but a chanç at a much there be light' - the creative power is iust rhe power that, because it deeper level (as creation itself involves a 'chanç' at a much deeper results in things beingwhat they are, in persons beingwho they are, can- level), so we should not see the resurrection of Christ to glory in terms not interfere with creatures. Obúously creating does not make any of physical or chemical change, the mere 'resuscitation of a corpse'. Like difference to things, it lets them & themselves. Creation is simply and transubstantiation. the resurrection can have a date without being an

l08 r09 Atowment The tuter Yìgíl: the mryry oJ new llfe event enclosed by history, without being pan of the flow of change that terms of the vibrations in your throat causing variations in a magnetic constitutes our time. Moreover, iust as for the mainstream Catholic field and so on, but what you experience is noq normally, making tradition the colour and size and location ofthe consecrated host are changes in the telephone, but the presence of the person at rhe other sþs, and not the colour, size and location of the body of Christ that is end of tlre line. The ælephone is not now an obiect to you, it is the way sacramentally present, so we should surely say that the visible and you ¡¡re with another. I mention this because it seems to me that in tlre tangible appearances experienced by the disciples after the resutrection case of your body this situation is reversed. A telephone is mosr of tbe are sþs, and not the physical appearance of the risen Christ who was time a thing, an object before you, but fust somerimes it becomes a really present to them. If we see the post-resurrection appearances in medium of communication with the rest of the world. Your body, on the such sacramental terms, we see them to be as real as the Eucharist but contraÐt, is normally experienced as a medium of communication and is no more physical than the Eucharisq and we need no longer seek to just occasionally treated as an object, a part of the world. The ordinary make a consistent single physical story of them. way in which you are conscious of being bodily, conscious of 'having a The resurrection from the tomb, rhen, is ambiguous in that it is both a body', is being conscious of it as your way of being present ro the world. presence and an absence of Christ. The resurrection surely does not Your body is first of all a means of communicarion and indeed it is the mean that Christ simpþ walked out of the romb as though norhing had source of all other forms of communicarion. Telephones and books and happened. On the contrary, as we shall see, he is more present, more satellites are only media of communication in so far as they are used by bodþ preænt, than that; but he is nevertheless locally or physically human bodies. Nothing uses the body, except in the sense that we may abaent in a way that he was not before. speak of one part of it being used by the whole -'He used his left hand It is, of course, essential to the Catholic tradition that the resurrection to twist the knob'. It is because drc body is the source of communication of Christ is bodily; that is to say rhat it is Christ himself, this human that we say it is alive, that it has a soul. The body that communicates by bodily being who is risen. The resurrection does not cancel bur rather conventional sþs, by symbols it has not iust inherited but created, by crowns the incamation, the enfleshing of the Word. Ir is nor, for l"ttgo"g", is humanly alive, it has a human soul. example, that some thought about Christ, some inspiring memory of It is because of the body rhat we make sþs and symbols and the him, lives on in the minds of his followers- The message of the whole of what we call culture and the specifically human form of social resurection is that the incamate Christ is alive and is with us. Resunexi life. That is why all human symbols are in some way commensurate with et odhuc tecum sum: I am risen; I am witfi you. our bodies. Civilisation is just the network of communication be¡reen I think I should say a word about bodies and 'being wirh'. One of the bodies. It is one of the peculiariries of the human body that, unlike other the way things that gets in of our undersranding bodies is that at school animals, we can extend our bodiliness outside our skin: the city is we heard so much about bodies travelling with a uniform velocity or nothing other than the human body or bodies extended outside the skin accelerating or colliding with other bodies; the word has come ro be of the human animal. Primarily, then, our bodies are our way of being associated with impersonal things or objects. One disastrous conse- Present. of this we quence is that begrn to rhink of 'my body' as the impersonal A special thing about Jesus in Palestine was the intensiry of his bodily oblective bit of me and to locate'my selfl somewhere else, in some non- presence - which ofcourse included his speaking People experienced bodily bic of me- We need to rake a new and candid look at whar it him as so present to them that they felt altoçther accepted; and because r¡eans to speak of 'my body'. they were sure ofacceptance and forgiveness they were able ro accept Think of a telephone. There it is on the table, an obþct occupying a bit and forgive each other. That is howJesus did, for a while, create around of your world, pan of your visual space. You can do things to it, move it him a group of people who in varying degrees lived in his presence and or dust it. Now what happens when the telephone rinç? You pick it up in this presence were touched by the God who is love. In his bodily and start talking and as you do this the telephone ceases ro be an oblect presence for a few years this was possible for a few people. in front of you, a pan of your world; it becomes a means of communi- Because our body is primarily our way of being presenr, our funda- cation with somebody, a means by which you are with somebody. As it mental form of communication, absence always or nearly always means does that it disappears. If it is working properþ you do not see yourself as bodily absence. That is why death is the most extïeme form of absence. talking to a telephone; you are talking ro someone by means of a love, füendship, requires bodily presence. As I have said, speech is a telephone- lt is true that you can give an accounr of what is happening in bodily presence and so it is possible to have a kind of presence from a no llr Atoæment The tuçcr Yigúl: the myrcry oJ new llfe distance by letters and telephones and other ways of conveþg words; with humankind, the füendship we symbolise and seal in the Eucharist. we don't have to be actually rouching or within reach all tlre time. But We encounter the risen Christ, so the Gospels tell us, in two ways, in when the beloved is away we long for more direcr forms of presence. nvo great sþs, each a sþ both of the world and of tlre love of God: the We cannot give an accor¡nt of human love and friendship except in poor and the sacraments. The poor are pri-*ily a sþ of the sin of tlre terms of bodies. world: tlre oppressed, the homeless, the naked, the hungry, all those Now, tlre resurrection of Christ means first of all that we are in his who stand in need of our lrelp, unmask our world for what it is: a world presence, his bodily presence, and tl¡is, of course, is what we celebrate struoturd by sin. In tlrese we ñnd Christ in iudgement on our world. and symbolise in the sacraments of the Church, centring on the This is the point of Mattlrew's vision of the judgemenc ifyou \ rant to see Eucharist, the sacrarnent of his body: we sacrarnentally come in contact what it means for God to be in judçment on the world look at the poor; with the body of Christ, touch the body of Chrisq, our bodies are linked tl¡at is where Christ is iudging and judging by the standard of che love of with his. We celebrate it too in the New Testamenq with the declaration God. Here we have a visibility of the risen Chrisc tlrc love which gives of stories of the appearances of the risen Christ. These are all ways of judgement for the poor. The second sþ is tlre Church and its sacra- celebrating that Christ is alive, bodily alive, and therefiore with us. But, as ments, in which we celebrate the coming of the Kingdom of love which I was saying in the ñFt chapær of this Sermon, we are only in contac't @ntf,asts with our world and into which our world is being sacramentally with Christ through a special d"pth i" our inter- transformed; and yet, as we saw earlier, this is a celebration that belongs communion with each other. Christ is present but ambiguousþ presenq intrinsically to tlris world of sin. what we see, the presence we experience, is the presence ofeach other. The kingdom to which we are dedicated in our baptism, which is Our resurrection at the end of time will mean that we are no lonçr founded on tlre new bodily lile of tlre resurrection of Christ, is a life in sacramentally but unambiguously present to Chrise but in the mean- which we will encounter Christ neither in the poor nor in the .We time his p¡esence is also a kind of absence - proclaim his death sacr.¡ments. For there will be neither poverry nor the sacred symbols of until he comes'. religion in the coming Kingdom. The Church will have withered away, Notice how in all the stories of the resurrection appearances the sþs poverty will be no more. Then we will be fully and bodily present to our are those of bodily presence - Jesus eats and drinls wirh his disciples, risen lord, sharing in his transformed humanity and in his divinity ûor he asks Thomas to touch him; and yet it is just as clear that this is not an eternity. ordinary bodily presence. It is imponant in the Thomas story that Thomas does not in fact touch him but reaches into his bodily presence by faith. It is important that Mary Magdalene does not at first recoflnise him. Here is a bodily presence not too tenuous but too intense to be accommodated within our common experience. It is this presence that we now celebrate in celebraring the resurrection, a new kind of bodily life that we are sharing but one that in this aç is only úsible sacramentally. When the disciples met with the risen Christ on the road to Emmaus they did not recognise him even though they were drawn to him by his exposition of the scriptures. It was only when they stopped for the night to share a meal with him that they knew him in the breakirrg of bread. It is in the breaking of bread, rhe Eucharist and the whole shared Christian life, that we know the Chrisr who is with us. 'And immediately he vanished from tleir sight.' The Emmaus story is a comment on all the resurection appearance $ories: once we have recognised the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, in our celebration of the sacriffcial love of Chris¡ by which we are able to love each other, there is no need for any other appearance. We are to find the risen Christ, ñnd our own risen life, in our uniry with each other and tt2 ll3