3rd Sunday of Easter – 14 April 2024
The well-known late 20th century spiritual writer, Henri Nouwen, recounts a celebration of the Easter Vigil in the L’Arche community in which he was living for a time and with which he was closely associated just prior to his death. The L’Arche communities are those founded by the French Canadian Catholic, Jean Vanier for peoples with disabilities, and I cannot think of a more powerful commentary on the meaning of the encounter with the Risen Christ proclaimed this Sunday. It is an encounter with the Risen One who remains forever the Wounded One, an encounter with something so tangible and so earthly and yet with something so sublime and so transcendent, an encounter with both our fears and our hopes, our agony and our delight. And so Henri Nouwen recounts:
“The Easter Vigil. The Lord is risen indeed. They shouted it in French, German, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch and Arabic. There were bells, alleluias, smiles, laughter and a deep sense there is hope. This community of handicapped people and their assistants was loudly proclaiming that Christ’s body did not remain in the tomb, but was raised to new life, and that our bodies will join him in glory.
While all this joy was filling the chapel, I saw that Nathan stood up with Philippe in his arms and left the church. Philippe’s body is so severely distorted. He cannot speak, walk, dress, or feed himself and needs help every second of his waking hours. He had been laying in an assistant’s lap, quietly sleeping. But when the celebration became more lively he started to howl, an anguished howl coming from deep down in his being.
When I saw Philippe in Nathan’s arms I suddenly realised what we were proclaiming on this Easter Vigil. Philippe’s body is a body destined to a new life, a resurrected life. In his new body he will carry the signs of his suffering, just as Jesus carried the wounds of the crucifixion into his glory. And yet he will no longer be suffering but will join the saints around the altar of the lamb.
Still, the celebration of the resurrection of the body is also the celebration of the daily care given to the body of these men and women. Washing and feeding, pushing wheelchairs, carrying, kissing, and caressing – these are all ways in which these broken bodies are made ready for the moment of a new life. Not only their wounds but also the care given them will remain visible in the resurrection.
It is a great and powerful mystery. Philippe’s poor distorted body will one day be buried and return to dust. But he will rise again on the day of the resurrection of the dead. He will rise from the grave with a new body and will show gloriously the pain he suffered and the love he received. It will not be just a body. It will be his body, a new body, a body that can be touched but is no longer subject to torture and destruction. His passion will be over.
What a faith! What a hope! What a love! The body is not a prison to escape from but a temple in which God already dwells, and in which God’s glory will be fully manifested on the day of the resurrection.”[1]
Our deepest hope in life is not based on wishful thinking. Our hope in life is based on our belief that the broken body of one of us, Jesus from Nazareth, has been transformed into new life. In this faith is our peace, and our responsibility, also, for the care of each other.
[1] Henri J.M. Nouwen, Show Me the Way: Readings for each day of Lent, (Crossroad: New York, 1995), 138-139.
