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On a bright sunny morning, the sky a dome of blue, we visited the churches of San Silvestro and La Maddelena, each stunning, each with its own history and personality.

The Church of San Silvestro today, with its 8th-century wall fragments worked into its courtyard, looks upon the busy bus turnaround piazza.  But upon entering through the garden atrium into the church, I fell into a quiet delight.

Built over Emperor Aurelian’s temple to the sun, San Silvestro in Capite derives its name from its precious relic, part of the head of John the Baptist (”in capite”).   Pope Stephen III and Pope Paul I built the first church in the eighth century to house bones brought from the catacombs (a list of the saints who were entombed frames the front door), and it was rebuilt in the twelfth and sixteenth centuries.  Poor Clares cared for the church until 1876, taking part in services from behind altar grills.  Today, the Irish Pallottini Fathers are in residence, and it is the national church for British Catholics in Rome and others who speak English.

We entered the small narthex and gazed at the marble and gold, the softly rolling barrel vaulting, the frescoes, the light that danced through the airy church.  A Confessio under the high altar houses the relics of Popes Silvester, Stephen I, and Dionysus.  I have learned more about Silvester on this trip, for he was the Pope who baptized Constantine, whose papacy covered those first years when Christianity was legal in Rome. We had seen the Lateran Baptistery where the baptism took place in the mid-fourth century.  We had seen Santa Croce where the basilica was built to house Helena’s Wood of the True Cross.  Silvester was Helena’s Pope, and here he was under the altar of his own church.  I could see he shared with John the Baptist the quality of forerunner, the first to proclaim, each in his own era, the reality of Christ’s resurrection.  I was beginning to connect the dots.

A red candle burned and I knew the Sacrament was reserved on the High Altar.  I said a prayer of thanksgiving for the church, its people and its clergy, and moved back to the chapel off the north aisle where the head of John the Baptist lies in a glass reliquary.  There too I said a prayer for a friend who would that day be tested and tried, as he led and shepherded, a friend who was ordained on the Feast of John the Baptist.  I also prayed for my little novel in progress, that I be given wisdom in the myriad of choices to be made, for I plan to set some of my story in this church.  Perhaps the first true evangelist was John the Baptist, crying repentance in the desert and pointing to Christ, and I prayed I would have his vision and his courage, or maybe just a bit of his vision and courage would be ample.

We met the bright sun streaming onto the square of buses and turned toward the Corso, the busy shopping street bordering the lovely meandering neighborhoods around the Pantheon and Piazza Navona.  We crossed over to the broad Piazza Colonna and turned into the warren of shady lanes, stepping carefully on uneven cobbles and avoiding tour groups, which seem to suddenly appear like a frenzied cloud of bees.  A few blocks in, and we found the Rococo Church of Santa Maria Maddalena, known as “La Maddalena.”

The church faces a pretty and intimate square of restaurants and is a block from the Pantheon.  We stepped up to its small porch and entered.  At first disappointed by the scaffolding covering the first part of the nave, I soon realized the best had been restored – the chancel, the transept chapel, and the golden organ over the doors.

Historical records dating to 1320 speak of a small oratory on this site, dedicated to Mary Magdalene and connected to a hospital near the Pantheon.  The complex was overseen by a confraternity, a guild of lay men and women dedicated to helping others and devoted to a particular saint or relic.  Saint Camillus founded a similar order toward the end of the 16th century and was given this church.

The saint’s story was similar to many: the repentant hedonist gives himself to God.  His name was Camillus Lellis (1550-1614) and after being crippled in a war with the Turks, he returned to Rome where he met Phillip Neri who converted him.  He was ordained and devoted his life to helping the needy and sick, forming the Order of the Ministers of the Sick.  The Camillians, as they came to be called, wore red Latin-cross emblems, visited hospitals and homes as they cared for the dying and nursed plague victims.  From La Maddalena, they distributed clothing and food to the poor and homeless.  When Camillus was canonized in 1746, the church was beautifully renovated by the Camillians.

We walked through the scaffolding and into the restored nave under frescoed domes through light shafting through clerestory windows.  The Madonna of Health, a sweet and comforting image, resides in a south aisle chapel.  Off the south transept we found the Holy Crucifix Chapel which I recalled had a miraculous crucifix.  Here, in this three-pew sanctuary, behind ornate grillwork, a large wooden crucifix is suspended over an altar.  Here, in 1582, Camillus heard the words: ”Take courage, faint hearted one, continue the work you have begun.  I will be with you because it is my work.”  How often I have longed for those words, but then, visiting these saints where they lived and worked, I believe I have heard them, again and again.  A great blessing, and I shall take courage indeed, faint hearted as I am.

Also in this lovely chapel is a charming fifteenth-century sculpture of Mary Magdalene, and a fascinating cross created on the side wall from brass carvings of the Stations of the Cross, three forming each arm, three above, and five below.  I traced my fingers over the cool metal, wondering at such a marvel, here in this chapel of holiness.

As we stepped back through the scaffolding, I looked up to the Baroque organ, the golden angels taking wing amidst gilded clouds.

La Maddalena, I decided, was definitely a church of healing, and appropriately so, dedicated to the woman brought the ointments to the tomb that Easter morning, who was the first to recognize the risen Christ.  She would run to tell the others the news, that death had been conquered.

La Maddalena: Open Mon-Fri, 8 am-noon, 5-8 pm; Sat-Sun, 9:30-noon, 5-8 pm; Masses, Feriale-8 am, 7 pm; Festivo-9:30 am, 11:30, 7 pmSan Silvestro in Capite: Open 7 am-12:30, 3:30-7:30 pm; Masses, Feriale – 12, 6:30; Festivo – 10, 12, Italian, 5:30.  Resident order: the Pallottini Fathers.

We were blessed with a charming guide, Sister Mary Emmanuel, a novitiate in the order of the Missionaries of Divine Revelation,http://www.divinarivelazione.org .   She met us at the Entrance doors, her face shining with welcome, alight with an interior joy, her voice rising and falling in a melodic Irish lilt.  She has taken a new name since we met her last year in the order’s shop at the Lateran basilica, and she wears a forest green habit with a white headscarf.  It was so good to see her.

The morning was full of image and word as she paused before paintings that told the story of our faith.  We entered worlds of color and form and meaning, as she explained how the devout Franciscan Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling and walls with the history of man, from the parting of light and dark in the Creation to the end of time and eternity.  How all, in the end, through Creation of the earth and the heavens to the Last Judgement, reflected the love of God, the love of the Creator for His Creation.  The movement from the pagan world to the Christian world reflected this love, the prophets, apostles, martyrs all reflected this love of God for Man.  And all of this action through time became encapsulated in the Eucharist, the bread of Heaven, that feeds us and makes us one with God the Son in our earthly journey.

The themes of truth, beauty, and justice, seen in the Rafael rooms reinforced this divine order, and I pondered their relationship with one another, considering that true beauty and just law reflected God, the truth of God, themes I explore in my novels.  Even those who do not believe in Christianity, yearn for truth, beauty, and justice.  I would add mercy to Rafael’s themes.

But best of all was seeing Sister Emmanuel bright with the presence of God around her like a halo, full of His caritas, His love.  All of the art in the Vatican points to life, to the love of one for another, and she embodied this.  It was good to see her lead us down the halls of color and gold, under the vaults and into the ornate Renaissance rooms, her green habit dusting the marble floors. She was the only religious – members of the monastic orders – I saw there, and I wondered why, and I realized what a valuable work her order was engaged in – instructing the world in the art and heart of Christendom, the Vatican in Rome, revealing Christ to all of us through the image and color, word and vision, reaching to us from earlier ages.

A light rain fell as we walked up Via Torino to the Esquiline Hill, one of the seven hills of Rome and home to some of her most beautiful churches.

Our first stop was Santa Prassede, an exquisite medieval church, dating to even earlier times.  It is said that Santa Prassede and nearby Santa Pudenziana were built over titula, houses used for first-century Christian worship, owned by Senator Pudens, mentioned in Peter’s letter to Timothy.  It is said that Peter stayed here and celebrated the Eucharist.  Prassede and Pudenziana, daughters of Senator Pudens, cleansed the bodies of the martyrs and buried them in wells on their property.

We entered Santa Prassede through the south aisle and walked to the foot of the nave, past mysterious side chapels to the open doors of the original entrance.  A monk in black robes stood in the entryway, watching over his church, his figure outlined by the sudden bright sun lighting up the garden court beyond.  We turned and gazed at the glorious chancel and apse.

Mosaics covered the apsidal arch and dome, rising above a marble baldachin and altar.  The church is not large, and the effect of the golden chancel, the light pouring in from the garden, and the frescoed side walls creates an ethereal space.

We stepped slowly up the central aisle toward the glittering apse and descended to the Confessio to honor Prassede’s tomb.  We touched that first century from this twenty-first century, our fingers, like doubting Thomas, reaching tentatively, through the years.  Those believers, like ourselves, lived in a pagan world.  But their world of hope was beginning, while ours seemed to be dying.  As I thought this, I shook myself, realizing that in that dying, God would redeem us, He would rebuild, transform, rebirth.  He would do it through His Church, reaching back to Prassede and all those who gave their lives since those days of persecution.  The blood of the martyrs would speak to us, would nourish us, and I left the grave of Prassede with that hope alive and well.

Returning to the nave, we heard singing.  A group had filled the Blessed Sacrament Chapel and were chanting prayers in French.  We drew closer and listened as the soaring notes echoed through the church, coloring the air.

More hope, more joy, more life.  We said a prayer of thanksgiving and stepped into the mist, heading for Santa Maria Maggiore across the street.

Santa Prassede: Resident Order, The Benedictines of Vallombrosa; Open: 7-12; 4-6:30; Mass Sundays 11:30, 6:00; http://www.santaprassede.it

We entered the Basilica of Mary Major, the primary Marian church in the world, but to me a touching reminder of the importance of matter, the holiness of things, and the love of family.

The Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore spread before us, the tall white columns lining either side of the long nave leading to the canopied altar.  We walked slowly down the marbled aisle, glancing up to the gold coffered ceiling, moving toward the high altar with its ornate baldachin, but it was the Confessio below that I was most interested in.  For, I knew, curved stairs led to a an ark reliquary containing a piece of the wood of Christ’s crèche.  There, a few folks kneeled, others stared and took photos, others stared at those kneeling.

The piece of wood could be seen.  It was a material object giving man hope that the stories were true, that there had been born in Bethlehem the Son of God just as they said, that there it all began, man’s journey into life from death.  Was the wood real?  I believed it probably was.

I smiled at the sweetness of it, the simplicity, the “out of the mouths of babes” wisdom of it, the simple wood glorified, matter made sacred, the created world made holy.  We turned and ascended to view the Lukan Madonna nearby.

For the other part of this lovely Christmas church is the Salus Populus Romani, the “Savior of the Roman People.”  No, the Roman faithful don’t see this Madonna as redeeming them from sin and death, a role owned by Christ.  In the Middle Ages this Madonna was lifted in procession and carried through the streets of Rome during a plague and the plague suddenly ended.  Since then she has been invoked by many, many times, notably during World War II when petitioners asked that Rome be spared bombing, and for the most part, the city was spared.

We found the Madonna in the northern transept chapel high over the altar, protected by glass.  She is said to have been painted by Saint Luke, but scholars can only date her to the first century; legend must supply the artist.  There is a high probability that she is, indeed, a Lukan Madonna.

We stood in the back as a Mass was being offered, and I gazed at the image high above, an earthy image of reds and browns painted on wood, framed in gilt.  A thoughtful Eastern face, the boy-child sitting on her knee.  Hail Mary, I prayed, and asked her to guide me on this trip through time, through these spaces of prayer and sacrament, of image and wood, of dusty pavements and buzzing scooters.  Hail Mary, blessed art thou among women.

The Basilica of Maria Magiore was built on the Esquiline Hill where a cemetery for the poor once existed.  In 350 the wealthy John the Patrician dreamed of the Virgin Mary.  She asked him to build a basilica on the hill where snow would soon fall.  Pope Liberius had the same dream, and the following day, in the heat of August 5, snow fell on the Esquiline Hill, and Liberius marked out a basilica dedicated to Mary.  Every August 15 the Ceremony of the Snows is held: flower petals fall from the coffered ceiling onto the congregation.

Open 7 am-6:45; Masses: Sunday 7 am, 8, 9, 10 (Latin), 11, 12 noon, 6 pm; Monday-Saturday 7 am, 8, 9, 10, 11, 3 pm, noon, 6 pm;www.vatican.va

We woke to blue skies on Monday and headed out to revisit two of the major basilicas, Santa Croce in Gerusalemme and San Giovanni Laterano, both built along the ancient Aurelian Wall.

Santa Croce, once the atrium of the Empress Helena’s third-century palace, has long entranced me.  For many years it was scaffolded for restorations and closed, but since the millennium celebrations, it has remained open mornings and afternoons.  Set back from the busy street behind a lawn and cobblestone drive, the church is welcoming with its white façade and gently curved portico.  We entered and gazed at the cerulean blue apse, Christ in the center, holding a book that reads I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  We followed the marble-tiled central aisle to the canopied high altar and turned up the south transept and then left to the back of the church where, I recalled, Helena’s rooms could be seen.

When the present basilica was built, Helena’s bedroom and private chapel formed the back of the church.  The chapel housed the wood of the True Cross she brought back from Jerusalem as well as Jerusalem soil she spread upon the floor.  Today the wood has been transferred to a relic chapel off the north aisle.

We followed a tunnel-like passage down a gentle slope to the first room, the original chapel, today empty.  The second room through an archway has become the monastery chapel (the church is cared for by Cistercians).  We paused in Helena’s Chapel and gazed at the incredible mosaic vault above, Christ in the center again holding a book, this time open to the words, I am the Light of the world.  I realized this church was all about truth – the True Cross, the Truth of Christ, the Light, the Way to Truth.  Today, that is heady stuff, for truth is difficult to come by, constantly assailed, and often ridiculed.  It is generally believed that it doesn’t exist, a concept in itself that, to me, seems unbelievable.

Thinking about truth and authorities and real and unreal I gazed at the many other relics in the northern relic chapel.  Somehow I trusted that they were real, given their pedigrees, and their association with these early years of the Church.  A nail.  A thorn.  The title bar raised above Christ’s head.  And others.  The wood of the Cross.

We paused again at the foot of the nave and pondered the stunning spherical apse bathed in blue.  This was a church of the Cross, I knew, used by popes on Good Friday, and associated with the Passion of Christ, the crucifixion.  Yet while the wood of the Cross remained behind the glass, the risen Christ spoke victoriously from the apse and ancient chapel vault.  He reminded us that by that wood He conquered death, and with Him we too could conquer death.

We would not forget His truth as we headed out into the bright morning, finding the long straight path that led to the church of Resurrection, St. John Lateran, the Cathedral of Rome.

We walked down the wide path linking Santa Croce with St. John Lateran, passing alongside the ancient wall of Rome and a park where children played on brightly colored gyms and swing sets.  Tall shade trees lined the path, and I sensed I was on an old pilgrimage route, the triangle linking the basilicas of Maria Maggiore, Santa Croce, and San Giovanni Laterano.  Here, stepping between buzzing traffic and apartment houses, children playing in the sun and third-century walls staunchly watching, I prayed God would sanctify our time here in Rome, and that we would be receptive to what He wanted us to see, and, perhaps, say.

Nearing the hub of traffic in front of the Lateran, we passed the giant statue of St. Francis raising his hands into the air, arms reaching toward the white basilica set back.  Francis faces the papal basilica where he met with the Pope to form his order of Friar Minors eight hundred years ago.

As we approached the church, workers were setting up or taking down stage settings and chairs with cranes and forklifts and vans, obscuring the entrance.  We passed street sellers of handbags displayed on blankets and walked up the steps to the porch.

We entered the nave through the south aisle and paused to view the marble tiles swirling along the floor, the white sculpted apostles leaping from their niches along the sides, the altar and confessio and baldachino, the golden filigree reliquary with the heads of Peter and Paul higher above.  Sun slanted from the south through clerestory windows, throwing squares of light onto the center aisle, and I worked my way toward the high altar, turning to photograph the twelve apostles.

We continued to the head of the aisle, where the confessio beneath the altar held the remains of Pope Martin V who built the present basilica, and looked up to the relics of Peter and Paul, enshrined in gold.  To the left in the northern transept Blessed Sacrament Chapel, wood from the table of Christ’s Last Supper is kept behind a golden frieze.  The chapel is anchored by two giant gilded columns, and the Sacrament is reserved in a marvelous tabernacle, a church of its own, domed and columned and porticoed, golden, bright.  In this chapel, pilgrims kneel and pray.  There were fresh flowers on the altar, celebrating Eastertide.

We stepped around to the apse where the cathedra, the episcopal chair, sits against a patterned marble background, but high above is the glorious apsidal dome, the risen Christ in glory, frescoed in stunning color.  Here, on Maundy Thursday, in this chancel, Pope Benedict, imitating Christ, washed the feet of his priests, dipping their bare flesh into a basin and drying them with care, his eyes on theirs, signifying the moment with grace.

We continued to the Baptistery, an outer building dating to the fourth century, and entered a large octagonal rotunda.  In the center a massive empty basin recalled the original pool, dry now, today containing a marble altar and Paschal candle, marking the forty days after Easter.  Several ancient chapels extend from the baptistery.  I gazed at the old walls, and the huge font, imagining the full immersion of the catechumens in their white robes on Easter Eve, washed clean by the Holy Spirit and made a member of Christ’s Body, the Church.  I felt their joy as they took part in the Divine Liturgy for the first time, the secrets of the Church no longer secret, the mysteries revealed to those who could now understand them.  I understood there was a time and place for these things, and with their acceptance and understanding of the Apostles Creed (which was largely developed through these first catechumen classes), with their instruction throughout Lent, and with their washing in the baptismal waters, they could unite with Christ in the Bread and the Wine.

St. John Lateran is a church of resurrection and rebirth, a fitting seat for the Bishop of Rome, for it unites the Eucharist (the Last Supper Table and the washing of the feet, the Reserved Sacrament, the many daily Masses) with the rebirth of baptism, the promise of resurrection through Christ’s drawing us up with Him.  For it is through the Eucharist that this drawing us up and into Him is effected.  This is a theme of John the Evangelist, and it is appropriate that this church is dedicated to him, the apostle who first saw the risen Lord, and the apostle who wrote God is love, explaining that it is the gift of the Spirit, of Christ, that brings us into communion and out of separation, with God and with our fellow men.

As with each visit to St. John Lateran, I left understanding better with both heart and mind the mystery of our Faith, the mystery of life, the mystery of love, the mystery of God.

The rain has cleared and a dome of blue sits gently upon the Bay Area making us believe in spring, the air light with promise.

We are in glorious Eastertide, and the high altar this morning remains covered with white lilies.  The sweet Madonna and Child to the left of the pulpit, votives flaming at her feet, rises above a bed of flowers.  Floral scents mingle with frankincense as the thurifer leads the procession up the red carpet.  Would Heaven be like this?

Far away, on the other side of the world, a volcano erupts through glacier blocks, sending plumes of smoke and fire, filling the sky with glassy ash that slowly blankets Europe.  Lightning bolts through the plumes creating infernos from the earth’s depths.  It is as though the earth itself is exploding, laughing at man’s claims to control her.

My thoughts this morning wandered, I fear, away from the great Action of the Mass, to these massive acts of the natural world, and to man’s smallness, his creature-ness.  We had planned to fly to London soon, but perhaps not so soon.

But even so, the great Action of the Mass continued and I returned to my prayers, to take part in the liturgy, the work of the people.  I listened to the Epistle and Gospel, and turned toward the pulpit to hear the words of the sermon.

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday.  In the Gospel for today, Christ says He is the good shepherd who knows his sheep.  Our preacher explained that in the East the shepherd leads the sheep, contrary to the West where the shepherd herds the sheep ahead of him.  The sheep know their shepherd, else how could they follow, and the shepherd knows his sheep.  Indeed, Jesus says, He knows his sheep as He knows his Father, God.  It is an intimate knowledge, this shepherd-sheep knowing; it is a knowing full of love and sacrifice.

“Such knowledge is too excellent for me,” the Psalmist says, and again I am stunned by the love of God.  For each of us deeply wants to be known, really known, truly loved.  How do we respond, find this love?  We follow the Shepherd; we enter this miraculous, amazing relationship.  We follow in His steps, reading His word, partaking in his Sacraments.  We unite with Him in the Eucharist where, in the Consecration of the simple creatures of bread and wine, His words become flesh.  The Good Shepherd knows his own; He knows me.  The disciples knew the risen Christ when he broke bread with them.  Just so, we know Him in the bread of the Eucharist.  He abides in us, and we in Him.

The volcano continues to spew from the heart of the earth, through ice into sky, and as the images fill our screens, I am grateful for God’s immense love, that He shepherds us through this world of cataclysmic change, through wars and famine, through unknown futures in time and space.  I rejoice that as I journey through this life, I am reminded by the Church to simply follow the steps of our Shepherd, the one who pulls us to Himself, through word and sacrament, through His Body the Church.

Simply follow, and all will be well.  Such excellence.

It’s raining hard today, the earth drenched and quenched, the hills a deep green.  This morning we heard the rain on the roof of St. Peter’s, a steady gentle sound as though Heaven was stroking our ark, this sanctuary of God, as we sailed through the rising waters.

They call today Low Sunday and many think this is because attendance is low after the great festival of Easter, but it actually refers to a lower form of ritual used.  Still, the Mass was sung, and the liturgy much the same, as the amazing Eucharistic sacrifice was offered once again.  And our attendance wasn’t too low after all.

Perhaps Heaven wasn’t stroking us but rather washing us.  In the Early Church of the first centuries, the baptismal candidates from Easter Eve were allowed the full rites of the Eucharist on this First Sunday after Easter. The Introit (a sung opening prayer), I Peter 2, “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word…” reminds us of that time and our new life as we emerge from death to resurrection, from the womb to the air, from Easter to Eastertide.  We are babies, taking our first sips of milk, growing in faith through the Word of Scripture, the water of Baptism, the blood of the Eucharist.

Our good preacher explained all of this and more, and as I listened, once again spellbound by the richness of grace woven into the tapestry of the Church, I learned we are called on this Sunday “overcomers.”  The Epistle appointed for today is I John 4, “Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world…”, so we are born again through Baptism and in every Eucharist, through water and blood and spirit.  And our faith, our presence and participation in these sacraments, becomes the conduit, the way, by which we overcome the world.

Certainly first-century Christians faced a dangerous world – persecution, martyrdom, torture.  Today we face not-so-different dangers, as our world challenges and circumscribes our freedoms, freedom of religion to name but one.  We are overcomers, though, through membership in the Body of Christ, allowing Christ’s spirit to penetrate our own bodies and souls.  We are reminded that God wins in the end.

I read recently that our own resurrections when we die are effected by our bodies being joined to Christ, that He brings us up with Him, in Him.  The image has remained with me all this Easter Week, and combined with the humility of Lent, I know that it is only in our humility that He is able to pull us close, and only through the Eucharist, can he fully unite with us.  In this way, we shall rise with Him, be given new, resurrected bodies, for we shall be one with Him, we in Him, and He in us.

In the Gospel for today, John 20:19, Jesus appears to the frightened, hiding disciples.  He breathes the Holy Ghost upon them, giving them the power and authority of the Church, the power to forgive sins in His name. He breathes upon them the power of God.

We sang homely hymns today, fireside stories of the Passion and Redemption, simple melodies.  We have experienced the glory of Easter and are settling into a quiet, steady, walking the Way, living in the Spirit, being washed by God.

I received Christ at the altar and was thankful as the pouring rain washed my heart, overcome by this love from Heaven.

We stepped from the rain into the warm sanctuary and moved toward the altar covered with white lilies, finding places in the first pews.  We sang Charles Wesley’s victorious hymn, Jesus Christ is ris’n to-day, Al – – le – lu – ia!, as the clergy and acolytes processed joyously up the red-carpeted aisle toward the chancel where light streamed through the ceiling windows onto the medieval crucifix.

“Christ is risen!” the priest cried out to us, his flock.
“He is risen indeed!” we responded in unison.

The mysterious, fantastic truth of Easter filled me this Easter morning.  Christ’s resurrection from the dead meant the restoration of relationship between Man and God.  My meager Lent had taught me humility, as I craved the things I had given up, as I learned how needy my body could be, how helpless, in the end, I was, dependant on my little habits.  I learned humility and, from that place of humility I learned separation from God, and I understood Lent better.  I understood the desert.  I was thirsty.

But now resurrection made restoration and, knowing my great desire for Him, I moved through the happy liturgy knowing my humble body would be one day resurrected, that when I passed over into this new life, I would be given a new body, a perfect body, just as Christ, the paschal lamb, thepassover lamb, had been given one.

For, our preacher reminded us, it is Christ’s appearances in His perfect body, his new body, transformed into something else, that attest to the truth of His resurrection.  Jesus was seen by many, many who didn’t believe, but soon did believe.  Over the forty days walking the earth after His resurrection from the dead, these appearances transformed the ragtag group of terrified disciples into the first Christian Church.

We read the Gospel (John 20:1+) and again I was touched by the homely narrative, as though it was penned in a diary that evening.  Instead, I knew, these were words heard again and again in a world that did not use written words as we do.  Accounts were communicated orally, in sermons, in speech.  Eventually the words were placed on codex, preserved.  But by this time – a generation later or so – the words were certainly known by heart.  These are the words we hear in the readings of the liturgy, in the Gospel for Easter Day:

The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him.  Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre. So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre.  And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying…

There is a good deal of running in this vital passage, a good deal of sudden amazed excitement.  Mary Magdalene arrives in the dark and makes the discovery that will change the world and runs back to the others.  John, the youngest of the disciples, wants us to know (he is the author after all) that he has outrun his friend Peter, showing a curious boyish pride in winning the race.

It is the same amazement and excitement that fills my soul each year on Easter morning, as the frankincense billows up the red aisle toward the high altar, filling the air above and around us, a sweet cloud settling upon the Easter lilies and the tabernacle itself.  Soon, we would partake of His Body and Blood in the Eucharistic mysteries and continue the transformation of our own bodies.

The joy was steady all day, feeding my humble heart.  Sons and daughters and grandchildren, nieces and friends, rang our doorbell this Easter afternoon, entered our house and filled the rooms with laughter and light.  All of the many tribulations of life (which challenge us daily) seemed far away.  The rain continued to pour, and we lit a fire in the grate, played Handel’s Messiah, and gathered around a tray of chips, veggies, and guacamole.  We said grace, holding hands, around the buffet of salads and ham and salmon, and once more thankful for another year together on this good earth.

We praised God for his great gift of life, his promise redeemed this day, a promise I shall hold close to my heart in the weeks to come.

Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed! Allelulia!

“It is our whole faith that by His own death Christ changed the very nature of death, made it a passage – a ‘Passover,’ a ‘Pascha’ – into the Kingdom of God, transforming the tragedy of tragedies into the ultimate victory.”  Alexander Schmemann

Tall palm fronds – twelve feet? – rise on either side of the high altar, reaching up the brick apsidal wall.  They are signs of hope, as green often is, amidst the swathes of purple.  For Lenten purple still drapes the crucifix, the tall candlesticks, the Madonna and Child.  The processional cross too is hidden, and as the clergy and acolytes step toward the altar amidst clouds of incense, we recall the donkey stepping toward the gates of Jerusalem, the City of David, two thousand years ago, a humble animal carrying our humble God, parting the sea of humanity, the ocean of welcoming palms, heading toward the proud gates of the proud city.  The crowd would soon change, Christ knew.  Soon they would would condemn Him, acclaim His death before Pilate, taunt Him along the Way of the Cross, as foretold.

Today, Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week, is a day that begins the recalling of the great action of God among us: the conquering of death, the transformation of death to passover, pascha (Easter in the West), to a passing into the Kingdom.  Death vanquished by death; Christ is the Paschal Lamb, the Passover Lamb.

Stacks of smaller palms are blessed and given out, and we process around the church, singing All glory, laud, and honor/To thee, Redeemer King!  To whom the lips of children /Made sweet hosannas ring…, waving our palms, led by our children.  We walk the aisles, together, a family of God, linked by time and eternity, as we move toward our own passovers, our own crossings into the Kingdom.

Are we ready for our own paschas, our own Easters?  We examine our hearts, confess our sins, forgive our brothers and sisters, ask their forgiveness.  We have done things we should not have done and left undone things we should have done.  We say these words together, into the air of the nave, and the incense carries them to the tabernacle.  Our priest, imbued with the authority of two thousand years of Apostolic Succession, gives us absolution, frees us from our mortality, grants us our own passover into the Kingdom.

The Palm Sunday liturgy continues.  We hear the words of Scripture, incarnate with Christ himself.  We hear the words of the sermon, the interpretation of those words, a clarifying based on the promptings of the Holy Spirit weaving through the Church.  We offer the Mass, and in the sacred liturgy are forgiven, freed of ourselves to become ourselves now offered, souls and bodies to God.  Soon, we see, He offers Himself back to us, as He does in each Mass, as He becomes a mystical part of the bread and the wine, and we consume Him.  In the Eucharist itself we pass over, we experience pascha.  We enter His Kingdom, part the veil of the tabernacle and unite with God through Christ.  The Kingdom is now, not of this world, but granted through the matter of this world.

We enter Holy Week, a time of reflection, and of participation in the greatest drama of all history. We fast and pray.  We recreate that history in these hours and days as we move toward Maundy Thursday and the Last Supper.  We follow Christ to the Garden, to the trial, to the Way of the Cross.  We pause there on Good Friday and mourn for ourselves, our world.  Holy Saturday is silent with waiting.  In this way we, His Body, prepare for Easter, for Pascha.