"You’re very another na", youngsters quip. This quaint
“Taglish” expression resonates in Easter, notes Catalino
Arevalo of Loyola House of Studies.
After the resurrection, Jesus passes thru barred doors, then
vanishes, Luke and John recount.... Few recognize him
immediately. Time and space are no longer constraints. Jesus, Luke and John observe.. "He had
become another.”
Traumatized disciples locked
themselves into the Upper
Room. They recoiled in fright
when Jesus appears. “Touch
me. And see for yourself that
a ghost has no flesh and
bones, ” he said, displaying
nail-pierced hands and side.
“You’re very another na."
Mary Magdalene wept outside
the empty tomb. She thought the
gardener asked “Who are you
looking for”? After Jesus calls
“Mary”, she “turns and (says)…
Master.” In Emmaus village,
he vanished after two disciples
recognized him in “breaking of
the bread”. “You’re very another na."
Would you know it is Easter from
the newscasts? Supreme Court
chief justice Renato Corona
demands his unexplained dollar
accounts remain unexplained.
Fugitives Jovito Palparan and
Joel Reyes thumb noses at the
cops. One out of three kids go
hungry, Unicef reports.
North Korea prefers nukes over wheat
for its food-short people. Over 9,000
civilians have been killed since
Syrians demanded greater liberties
a year ago, UN estimates. Iran and
its allied Lebanese force, Hezbollah,
cheer the slaughter.
Like Syria ’s president Basha al Assad, few of us think of our deaths – and
what lies beyond. Yet, Easter offers a
“Lazarus moment “ to all, whether
buried in a pauper’s grave or airconditioned
mausoleum.
“Lazarus, come forth”, Christ cried
into a Bethany grave, two miles
from Jerusalem . The tomb’s stone
cover had been rolled away on his
insistence. “I am the resurrection
and the life,” Jesus told Lazarus’
sisters: Martha and Mary”.
Whoever believes in me,. though
he die, shall live.
Lazarus emerged, after being entombed
for four days. “His hands and feet
(were) bound with linen strips and his
face wrapped in a cloth,” John records.
“Untie him and let him go,” Jesus said.
We, too, will be untied from our
inevitable burial shrouds and let
go. All will have our “Lazarus
moment”. “The hour is coming
when all those lying in the tombs
will hear my voice and come out,”
Christ says. “Those who’ve done
good shall rise to live and those
who have done evil shall be
condemned.”
Coconut levies, overpriced police
helicopters, even Lichtenstein bank
accounts won’t matter then. But mercy
will, Matthew teaches. Easter’s bottom
line is about sharing our food with the
hungry, clothing the naked, soothing the
sick and reaching out to prisoners. .
“Whatever you did to the least of my
brothers, you did it to me.”
For Christ, “the deepest hurts, were
those delivered from his own select
group: Judas' betrayal with a kiss
and Peter's trio of denials”, says a
note from Alfredo Roces in
Australia . “We have all felt the
sting of betrayal.from the trusted.”
Yet, Christ’s first request after rising
is: “Tell Peter….”
“There are many Easter stories, writes
Irish theologian Eammon Bredin "But
they all express the same message:
God did not allow Him to be held in
death". This is not some kind of "His
cause goes on.”. . Rather, they assert:
Jesus has been brought, through death
--- into God’s future.
That experience "brought Peter the
Rock out of Simon the betrayer and
a crucified Paul out of a crucifying
Saul.” It also forged a church of
martyrs from scattered disciples.
The roll includes Lorenzo Ruiz of
Binondo, martyred on Japan ’s
Nishizaka Hill in 1637 and Pedro
Calungsod of the Visayas. In 1672,
Calungsod was hacked to death in
Guam while protecting his comissionary:
the Jesuit Diego de San
Vitores. He will be canonized at Piazza
San Pietro on Oct 21.
In the Easter appearances, Paul and
others use a different language.
They do not say: "We’ve seen Jesus
again", but "we have seen the
Lord and worshipped Him." Those
who proclaim Easter in their lives,
like Mother Teresa of Calcutta or
Blessed John Paul II, sometimes
stammer to articulate its meaning.
After Easter, Christ was “seen by
some, but not by others’, notes Oblate
columnist Ron Rolheiser. The
Resurrection accounts form “an almost
perfect parallel “ along those of the first
Christmas.
The Child was real, not a ghost.
The shepherds saw him. But
“experts of the law” did not.. Some
got the meaning and this changed
their lives.” Thus, the Magi
“returned to their home country by
another way”. Other massacred
every child below two in Bethlehem.
Many passed by Calvary only to
mock the crucified. The good thief
asked only “to be remembered” and
won quarter-of-midnight entry into
the kingdom. Herod and Caiphas
“hardened their hearts.”
What enables some to see while
others do not? Mary Magdalene and
some women go to the tomb at dawn
of Easter. Peter and John race to the
tomb when told it is empty. “Others
remain as they are, locked inside their
own worlds”.
“Whether we see or not, depends
upon what's going on inside our
own hearts,” Rolheiser adds. “The
miraculous doesn't force itself on
us.”
In Easter 2012, one can reach out,
across 6,000 years to a man who
spoke of the resurrection as itaga sa
bato. Deaths had decimated Job’s
family and flocks then. . His friends
had long vamoosed. And skin cancer
gnawed at him.
“I know that my Redeemer lives,”
Job insisted.”And In the end, He
will stand upon the earth. And after
my skin has been destroyed, yet in
my flesh I will see God.”
"You’re very another na", youngsters quip. This quaint
“Taglish” expression resonates in Easter, notes Catalino
Arevalo of Loyola House of Studies.