Father James Martin, S.J.: The Sixth Week of Easter

Subscribe to “The Examen” for free on Apple Podcasts
Subscribe to “The Examen” for free on Google Play

We’ve spent a few weeks now contemplating the great mystery of Easter. And if you’ve been to any Sunday Mass recently, you’ve heard a wide variety of Gospel readings: first, the appearances of the Risen Christ to Mary Magdalene, then to the Apostle Thomas, then to the disciples on the way to Emmaus. Then the Gospels shifted to some beautiful imagery that Christ used to describe himself: the Good Shepherd and the True Vine. The great variety of readings over the last few weeks remind us that Easter can’t be understood in just one way. We have to come at it from different angles, and use different stories and different images just to take it in.

Any profound experience in our lives is like that. We might experience the birth of a child, or suffer the loss of a loved one, or undergo a sudden illness or even have a new and exciting possibility at work open up. So this week you might ask yourself: Is there something in my life that I need to take time to ponder, time to understand? And how is God asking me to ponder this strange thing? Can I be as patient as the church is, in its journey to understand Easter?