EASTER EVEN; THE LIGHTING OF THE PASCHAL CANDLE.
Easter 1970.MALVERN
The sharp dawn in the still breath
The Christ-light in the pure faith
Candle leading candle
Light giving light
All to all.
Dark figures clothed in light
Depth of dark giving light
Strength of spark-light shedding dark
All from all.
Moving light star-studded
Glowing warmth fanning life
Glow-light spreading
All in all.
This was written over 30 years ago, at a time of intense joy and calling, at the
first , and indeed only, Easter Vigil I attended at an Anglican Covent...
LIGHT defeating DARKNESS.. birth, of life, of hope...A theme from Genesis onwards.
LET THERE BE LIGHT!
One strange thing about light is that it takes only a tiny gleam , a single ,
small candle for it not to be dark any more.
DARKNESS is more fragile than light...
Last Easter ( see the photo) I kept vigil outside the hermitage, warmly wrapped,
from around three a.m
I sat, facing east, in a still, cloudy night, at an hour when, in that most
intense darkness of all, even the night birds are silent.
For darkness IS always at its deepest and, most powerful just before it is
broken...
From that first tiny pale lightening of the thick clouds, it was no longer fully
dark... DAWN was unstoppable..
FULL LIGHT was coming, visibly burgeoning...
LIGHT is VICTORIOUS.. ALWAYS!
Not an instant advent.. It took around three long, cold hours to reach this
glorious climax in the photo...
But the sure knowledge that it would blossom into this splendour negated the
length of time, and the discomfort...
For once light is glimpsed, darkness is defeated.. TOTALLY.
Good Friday is a difficult time; there is darkness, suffering, abandonment,
pain, grief, torture, degradation.....All the things we instinctively shy away
from – but, as humans, cannot ever, any of us, avoid..
And these are of such an intensity that there is no tiny ray, no least gleam, to
break the gloom.. In that cry from the cross is echoed every cry of human
desperation ever uttered, resonating through every heart.. the pain is raw,
naked, and we can hardly bear to look at it..
Every suffering , every individual agony of body , mind, soul, is caught to that
cry as with a strong, slender thread.. A huge, yet intimate web, intricate, yet
so clear.
Some lives seem to be a long Good Friday, so firmly fixed in that desperation,
where God is invisible, that no light penetrates.
For, as was explained to me, as Christ could not feel the being of God, so we ,
when thus caught up in the pain He bore for us and with us, cannot feel that
love...
For where God is not, there can be no light.. He is the only light that is..
Without Him, darkness is total.
For me, the years before and the years after, that first and so bright joy that
God gave me, calling me then to the religious life, and in His great heart
accepting me then, were sheer Good Friday.
That joy did not return to me until that day in the garden 2 ½ years ago..
And even now, there are resounding echoes, times of dark pain, when I can see no
light...
But now I know that even the darkest , longest night – and in this northerly
realm in midwinter the night s are very long and very dark...HAS TO END..DAWN is
written in the world, in God's ordering.... No force can hold it back,
That is how God in His love made it...That LIGHT ALWAYS returns.. AND WE KNOW
THIS, HAVE THIS CERTAINTY in our physical, God-created world.
God who gave us His only Son, Jesus Christ, spoken of as LIGHT by the prophets,
speaking of Himself as LIGHT, will not let His children remain in darkness, be
overwhelmed by night.
Good Friday ended...EASTER happened..
So take comfort this Eastertide..."the Light of the World" has defeated the most
intense darkness that nature or any other power can create.. LIGHT is there, for
each of us.
Sometimes we have , to use a good Yorkshire word, to THOLE the darkness, endure,
hold on to what seems nothing...
That is, surely ,FAITH.. And a tiny scrap is enough to hold on to...Just a single
dust-like seed..
Sometimes when our own falls and fails, all we can do is lean on someone else's,
until our own strength returns, renews.. Let a brother or sister help us, as
Jesus was helped on Good Friday as He carried the cross.
Let someone else's frail candle lead our blindness.
Let ourselves be loved..
As Christ did.
Face our weakness fully..
I did and do that so many times...
Sometimes, now, I am humbled and awed because someone else needs my so-slender
candle as light for THEIR darkness...
That is what we are given LIGHT for.. to give, and to be given to.. to comfort
as well as to be comforted..
So hold your candle of faith proud and high...However small that flame, it ,by the
very nature of light, defeats darkness.
Let it shine bright and fair..
For who knows what other Good Friday pilgrim may just glimpse your shining point
and thus be enabled to climb up out of darkness...into the fair brightness of
Easter and heaven...
For we carry in our hearts the LIGHT THAT IS CHRIST RISEN.. And we share it on
as He taught us...
"A new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must
love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you
love one another."
John, chapter 13, vv34-34