This week in the school chapel services, we focused on the power of darkness and light, death and resurrection which seemed fitting for the first week of Easter. I asked the children to talk about their experience of the dark and death. Little did I realize that two of our students had experienced the death of parents this year. The recollection of their grief was real for these students ; they shared the dismay of the women who went to Jesus’ tomb. They could not hear the stories of transformation which came with resurrection because their loss was consuming.
In the Montessori based curriculum of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, the adult guides are instructed to always tie the crucifixion to the resurrection. Jesus died and was raised. As Christians we must pair the two; death without resurrection is unbearable; resurrection without death is superficial.
The ancient church used the Great Fifty days of Easter to instruct the newly baptized in the mysteries of faith; it was a period referred to as mystagogy. The chief mystery of our faith is the reality of death and resurrection as they are revealed to us in Jesus.
During these Fifty Days, during the 9:30 a.m. Sunday Forum, we will be offering a four session series on the last things—preparing for our own death and those whom we love by learning about wills, medical powers of attorney, living wills, and funerals. We do this in the sure and certain hope of resurrection. In our lives we know the truth of both death and resurrection.
-The Reverend Lisa Hunt, Rector