Sunday Reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons - 10 April 2016

Fr Robin Gibbons

It's been good for me this Easter to have entered into the celebrations feeling empty, why? Well I suppose like many people I begin to ask questions about the structures of faith that we all seem to accept as simply being there. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a crisis of my faith but something I believe we have to take on board if we are serious about discipleship and of our need for Christ.

It's all about growing up isn't it, discovering anew the resurrection in a particular stage of life.

Though Shakespeare's melancholy speech about the seven ages of man in As You Like It has a downward beat, nevertheless there is a great truth contained in it. We are all players on the world's stage and each have our entrances and exits, but we are also playing our part in life too, a life that changes, never stays still as does our journey in faith:

'And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.

So this year I begin to see in another way the Gospel accounts of the resurrection appearances of Jesus, from the point of view of emptiness and a sense of loss rather than great joy. These emotions are all there in the stories, the disciples seem totally disorientated, so in John's account of them fishing and then breakfasting with Jesus on the sea shore (Jn 21:1-19) we can sense their uncertainty. They are back at their boats, but like people numbed mourners, they are drifting aimlessly, they don't know what to do. When we get like this the temptation is simply to give up and for some, faith becomes irrelevant, but its not!

This gospel tells us a simple truth about hanging on in there, of constancy in discipleship. When we don't know what to do, when faith seems empty, gone, overwhelmed, when the apparent promises of God just haven't shown up, we need to follow this truth taught by Jesus and known by all saints. We have to get on with what we are doing and face ourselves, to meet God who is in that place.

Jesus is there for the disciples, he meets them, its then they see him in a new way, they have to face the darkness and self centeredness to allow his light into their lives. This is the repentance of unfinished lives, each of our seven ages being healed and brought closer to the Lord, the mourning that brings joy!

How can we find Jesus? By doing as the disciples did , being the best we can, hearing and following his words for us and by meeting him in the breaking of the bread!

Words from St John Climacus on joy-making-mourning

"My friends, God does not ask or desire that we should mourn from sorrow of heart, but rather that, out of love for Him, we should rejoice with spiritual laughter. Remove the sin, and the tear of sorrow is superfluous for your eyes. What is the use of a bandage when there is no wound? Before his transgression, Adam had no tears, just as there will be none after the resurrection, when sin will be abolished; for pain, sorrow and sighting will then have fled away."