Easter Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard

This Easter and every Easter, all over the country people will be receiving the eucharist for the first time. For some, this communion follows upon their baptism as adults, others have been received into the Church. This communion now made possible is a beautiful occasion for them and it is a beautiful occasion for us.

One of the ancient Fathers of the Church, St Ignatius of Antioch, had a most unusual way of describing the eucharist. He referred to it as medicine. In fact, he called it 'the medicine of immortality and the antidote of death'. It is a striking image, and perhaps a surprising one, yet it should not surprise us, because in John 6.54 we find Jesus saying: 'Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.'

We stretch out our hands to the bread of life, we press to our lips the cup of salvation, and here we find wholeness, cleansing, healing. How could it be otherwise? First of all, let us remember that communion brings us to the Lord of life. This is Christ who was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, 'in him was life.' (John 1.3-4). The Christ who comes to meet us from the empty tomb is the one who was there at the Father's side during the creation. This is the one who was there as Spirit of God, over vast aeons of time shaped the universe. This is the Son of God who spoke to us words of comfort, who died on the cross and now is raised from the dead, to show us that he is the Lord of life whom death cannot defeat. He is the one who in communion enters into our life, so that we may be inheritors of what he alone can give: eternal life.

Eternal life means life without decline, life without shadow, life without fear.

Compare and contrast the shocking truth around us and within us that we usually blank out. This is the knowledge that all things are declining to their end. Every stone will in time be eroded away. Every plant will dissolve. Every human being will cease to be. Even the star that we call the sun will, millions of years from now, burn itself out and be extinguished. In the long run, nothing is permanent. Even our most sublime achievements will pass away.

In the face of this knowledge that everything will cease, where do we find hope? The resurrection is our hope and more than that, it is God's promise to us that where there are people of faith, everything most precious to us is held safe in his keeping. The faces that we know and love, the voices that we recognize, everything that speaks to us the miracle of another human being - this is not gone forever but after this life is raised once and for all by God, into a new dimension where there is love, there is light and there is a joy beyond describing.

This life made known to us in Christ may be the most hugely powerful force the world has ever known, but it does not come to us as force. It comes to us as a face. The face of Jesus. God who is so vast, and so powerful, is also so loving that he comes to us as one like ourselves. When we look on Christ risen from the dead we see his eyes look at our eyes. We hear his words. We see his loving gestures. We see the people he has healed. We are there among the sinners he has forgiven. And we are there, too, at the table, as he blesses the bread and the wine, so that we may be given his life. 'Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.' This is his promise, and it reaches into our daily life now, so that we may already know his life within us.

Fr Terry is Parish Priest at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Brook Green, west London. His latest book: Ronald Knox and English Catholicism is published by Gracewing at £12.99 and is available on Amazon, on ICN's front page. To read Sr Gemma Simmonds' review on ICN see: www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=16114