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May
11, 2003
Many great tombs of our ancestors have survived from thousands of years before Christ. Practically without exception, they contain "grave goods" — food and drink for a journey. The tomb of the "Celtic Tut" south of Stuttgart, Germany, contains also his horse and charriot. Our ancestors obviously believed that life does not end with death — and it is unwise for us to call them foolish. Actually, the belief that life is circumscribed by the dates on a tombstone is a relatively recent abberation, dating chiefly from the negative philosophies of the 19th and 20th centuries. "But from the beginning it was not so." The dazzling brilliance of the empy tomb, the centerpiece of the Easter celebration, brings a mysterious joy to the human heart. It responds to something deep in consciousness, for in us there is a yearning for eternal things. Our grasp of the truth, and our experience of love, lead us beyond the limits of time. Our faith enables us to walk with the risen Christ. He also is the fulfillment of the eloquence of the "grave goods," for the hope of His "grave goods" finds completion in Christ, "Our Way — Bread," the Eucharist. In one of his sonnets, Shakespeare writes: "In me thou seeist the glowing of such fire, which on the ashes of his youth doth lie. As the death-bed on which it must expire, consumed by that which it was nourished by." The futility of life expressed here, is overcome by the Eucharist, which does not consume the consumer, and is not itself consumed. It "preserves unto life everlasting." "The man who eats my flesh and drinks my Blood hath everlasting life, and I will raise him up on the last day." Happy Easter — for everyday is Easter.
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