THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: The Cross calls us to be people of hope writes Offaly columnist

EASTER, for me, isn’t just about Easter eggs and Easter bunnies. Don’t get me wrong, I do love a chocolate Easter egg, but it is also a time that holds a deeper meaning, one of renewal, hope, and reflection.

As I take a moment to think about what Easter really means to me, I realise it's also more than just a religious holiday; it’s a time to reconnect with myself and the world around me. The Easter story invites us to travel with Jesus through the reality of death to new life. Like Jesus, we are called to surrender the pain and suffering of our world into the arms of our compassionate God. Our God walks with us as we respond to the misery, hardship, pain and the cross of so many realities in our world today such as the atrocities of war and violence, hunger and injustice, environmental destruction, the greed of some of those in power and the thousands upon thousands of homeless people and indeed the many hundreds of thousands of refugees walking their own journey to Calvary.

Events of Holy Week

Through the events of Holy Week, we experience intimacy and rejection, joy and sorrow, despair and hope, betrayal and faithfulness. Each Holy Week, I try to resist the temptation to rush too quickly to the joyful end of the week without first dwelling on Jesus’ suffering and the full meaning behind embracing Jesus' cross of love. In his passion, Jesus’ sufferings were unequaled. For the Son of God offered himself as a sacrifice and a gift for all.

And it is this gift of faith, at the heart of our Lenten journeys, that we are invited during Holy Week to reflect not only on the historical event of the Lord’s crucifixion, but the redemptive meaning of Jesus’ suffering love, poured out for all humanity and for each of us. It is particularly poignant in these challenging times for our world as we walk the path of Jesus’ on his paschal journey from Good Friday to Easter Sunday. Jesus on his Cross is the Human Face of God’s love, mercy, faithfulness, forgiveness and hope. Nowhere is this fundamental truth more evident than in Jesus’ giving of his life on the cross out of love and compassion for us all. This is the fundamental message of St. John’s Gospel: “God so loved the world that he sent his only son into the world, not to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:16-17).

That unfathomable love and compassion is what we celebrate this Holy Week. Jesus Crucified on the cross is a work of love. The miracle of miracles of love. The most stupendous work of the love of God. The bottomless sea of the love of God, where virtues are found, where one can lose oneself in love and the most beneficial means of abandoning sin and growing in virtue, and so in holiness happens. Easter celebrates a story where the fullness of our humanity and divinity embrace. It is a sacred story with which we can all identify.

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At times we find ourselves standing at the foot of the cross enduring suffering and pain, at other times we are like the women grieving at the grave of our loved ones, and on other occasions we find ourselves rejoicing in the goodness and kindness of another. Through all of this we meet Christ in whom ‘we live, move and have our being’ (Acts 17:28). The events of Holy Week transforms Jesus into a new being and calls us to do the same. The early disciples’ lives changed forever as they encountered the Risen Christ.

They changed from being fearful to being courageous as their consciousness of Love impelled them to continue the mission entrusted to them. As we celebrate Holy Week and Easter this year, our call is to be people of hope. To be people who let the light of the Easter candle burn brightly within so that others may share in the reassurance of what the Easter message offers. Even amidst the atrocities coming out of the wars and conflicts in our world, we see glimmers of hope and life. We see people reaching out to people. Easter reveals God’s desire to transform our doubts, our worries and fears into experiences of new life. Where do you see the seeds of new life emerging in our world today? How can we be bearers of hope in such a complex world?

Carrying our cross of hope

Sometimes there is a lot on our plate. Sometimes it is just too much that we have to bear. It is then that we realize what Jesus meant when he said everybody has to carry or embrace his or her cross. During this Holy week, as we think about Easter and remember the Lord’s Resurrection with all the events leading up to it, we have to take time to intentionally think and feel, or we can easily miss what it’s all about. As we think about the events of this Holy week so many years ago, there’s nothing more significant, even in all of history, than this, the Son of God taking upon Himself our humanity that He could assume our fallenness and heal our brokenness. He suffered throughout His life on earth to show us how to endure suffering and give meaning to our own suffering and death. And then He accepted the suffering and death on the cross for us. And all this He did out of love. Whatever crosses we carry in our lives, whatever hardships we face, we need to know that Jesus is walking in love with us.

We are also called to carry His cross with Him, like Simon, the Cyrenian did in supporting Jesus on his way to Golgotha. Carrying or embracing the cross with Christ does not take away the pain or the fear or spare us the disappointments and losses in our lives, but it tells us that our pain is not the last word of the story and it gives us real hope. God will wipe away every tear. If we carry our cross with him, he will lead us with love to the resurrection. To embrace our own cross and follow Him, is to do the same. The crosses of life are inescapable. We can neither run nor hide from them; if we simply confront them relying on our own strength, we will find that we are weak. The Cross is a fact of life, and there is only one response that does not result in our being crushed: to embrace it in hope and love with the love of our Lord, love of our neighbor including our enemies, and to suffer as co-redeemers with Him for ourselves and for all people and to carry our cross with hope.

Serious about our faith

In thinking about Jesus' death, we find ourselves invited to take a good hard look at our everyday life and activities and to be serious about the faith we profess. Holy Week cannot be a kind of ‘religious interlude’; time taken out from a life which is completely caught up in human affairs. It must be an opportunity to understand more profoundly the love of God, so that we’ll be able to show that love to other people through what we do and say. The lesson for us in this Holy Week is to have trust in God’s mercy, love and in his providence. God’s plans for us are all for love, for life, for our happiness and joy. Holy Week makes us ‘witnesses’ of our Lord’s love for us. Let us ask for grace this Holy week, to testify to the love we have witnessed. Let us open our hearts to one another, as Jesus living a life of love has opened his heart for us.

Take up your cross

During this Holy Week, let us take the time to think on these things and all that Christ has done. Let’s reflect on God’s great love for us. It is because of this that we have hope. In essence, taking up our cross is an act of radical trust. A trust that God's grace is sufficient to sustain us through every trial and tribulation. It's a trust that the path of discipleship, though narrow and fraught with challenges, ultimately leads to abundant life and eternal joy.

As the faithful accompany Jesus and Mary throughout Holy Week, they are showing us the meaning of love and Jesus love. Love means self-surrender. Love means handing over your whole self, everything you expect out of life, everything you want and have, all your actions and thoughts and putting it all in God’s hands, to do his will. So, if you feel the stirrings of Jesus's call in your heart today, I invite you to heed his timeless invitation: "Take up your cross and follow me." Leave behind the burdens that weigh you down, and step boldly into the adventure of faith. For in losing our lives for the sake of Christ, we truly find them. Let us be guided by the acronym for CROSS. C- Care for one another with compassion. R- Redirect one's life to the right path. O- Overcome temptations and offer all struggles to the Lord. S- Sanctify all actions to seek salvation. S- Serve God with one another and offer sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins.

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He saves us

That is how the Lord saves us, from within our prayers and questioning as he opens the horizon of hope. On the cross, even as he felt utter abandonment, Jesus refused to yield to despair; instead, he prayed, hoped and trusted. Even more, at the hour of abandonment, he continued to love his disciples who had fled, leaving him alone, and he forgave those who crucified him. Here we see the depth of our evil immersed in a greater love, with the result that our isolation becomes fellowship and fraternity, our distance becomes closeness, and our darkness becomes light. The depths of our misery are embraced by his mercy. We see who God truly is, and how much he loves us. We see how dear we are to him, and how dearly we have cost him!

Seek Him in everyone

A love like Jesus' love, embraces us totally and to the very end and it can turn our stony hearts into hearts of flesh, and make them capable of love, kindness, mercy, tenderness and compassion. Jesus, in his abandonment, stirs us to seek him and to love him and those who are themselves abandoned. For in them we see not only people in need, but Jesus himself, abandoned: Jesus, who saved us by descending to the depths of our human condition. That is why he wants us to care for others who resemble him most, those experiencing extreme suffering and abandonment. He wants us to care for the people in our world who are exploited and abandoned; the poor and homeless who live on our streets and we look the other way; migrants who are no longer faces but numbers; prisoners who are disowned; people written off as problems.

Countless other abandoned persons are in our midst, invisible, hidden, discarded such as children whom are seen in some cases as problems or will affect our lives schedules, the elderly who live alone, the sick whom no one visits, the disabled who are ignored, and the young burdened by great interior emptiness, with no one prepared to listen to their cry of pain.

Listen to the cries

Jesus, in his abandonment, asks us to open our eyes, ears and hearts to all who find themselves 'forsaken'. For us, as disciples of the “forsaken” Lord, no man, woman or child can be regarded as an outcast, no one left to himself or herself. Let us remember that the rejected and the excluded are living portrayals of Jesus and they remind us of his reckless love, his forsakenness that delivers us from every form of loneliness and isolation.

During Holy Week and always, let us implore this grace, to love Jesus in his abandonment and to love Jesus in the abandoned and forsaken all around us. Let us ask for the grace to see and acknowledge Jesus who continues to cry out in them. May we not allow his voice and their cries to go unheard amid the deafening silence of indifference. God has not left us alone; let us care, then, for those who feel alone, unloved, abandoned, homeless, rejected and forsaken. Then, and only then, as Pope Francis said, will we be of one mind and heart with the one who, for our sake, “emptied himself for us”.

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The empty Easter egg

“The Empty Easter Egg” is a story that was told to me by my Nana Scully when I was a child and it goes as follows. "John Scully was born with a broken body and a slow mind. At 12 years of age, he was still in second class and seemed unable to learn. His teacher, Mary Dunne, often became exasperated with him. He would squirm in his seat and make irritating noises. At other times, he spoke clearly and distinctly, as if a spot of light had penetrated the darkness. One day Mary called his parents in for a consultation. “John really belongs in a special school. It isn’t fair to him to be with younger children who don’t have learning problems.”

Mrs. Scully through tears said. “Miss Dunne, there is no school of that kind nearby and we know he really likes it here.” Mary sat for a long time after they had left, staring out the window. She wanted to sympathize with the Scully’s, but it wasn’t fair to keep him in her class. She had 27 other youngsters to teach. Furthermore, he would never learn to read and write. As she pondered the situation, guilt washed over her. Here I am complaining when my problems are nothing compared to that poor family. From that day on, she tried hard to ignore John’s noises in class. Spring came and the children talked excitedly about the coming Easter. Mary told them the story of Jesus and then, to emphasize the idea of new life springing forth, she gave each of them a large plastic egg. “I want you to take this home and bring it back tomorrow with something inside that shows new life. Do you understand?” The children responded enthusiastically but John said nothing. Had he understood what she had said about Jesus' death and resurrection? Did he understand the assignment?

The next morning, 28 children came to school, placing their eggs on Miss Dunne’s desk. After they completed their math’s lesson, it was time to open the eggs. In the first egg, Mary found a flower. “Oh yes, a flower is a sign of new life,” she said. “When plants peek through the ground, we know that spring is here.” A small girl waved her arm. “That’s my egg, Miss Dunne,” she called out. The next egg contained a plastic butterfly, which looked very real. Mary held it up. “We all know that a caterpillar changes and grows into a beautiful butterfly. Yes, that's a new life, too.” Little Judy smiled and said, “Miss Dunne, that one is mine.” Mary opened the third egg and gasped. It was empty and she knew immediately that it was John’s. He did not understand her instructions, she thought. If only she had remembered to phone his parents to explain it to them. Because she did not want to embarrass him, she quietly set the egg aside. Suddenly, John spoke up. “Miss Dunne, aren’t you going to talk about my egg?” Flustered, Mary replied, “But John, your egg is empty.” He looked into her eyes and said softly, “Yes, but Jesus' tomb was empty, too.” When she could speak again, Mary asked him, “Do you know why the tomb was empty?” “Oh, yes,” John said, “Jesus was killed and put in there. Then His Father raised Him up.” Mary cried and the cold inside her melted completely away. Three months later, John died. Those who paid their respects at the mortuary were surprised to see 27 eggs on top of his coffin, all of them empty!!

Thought for the week

As your thought for the week and as Easter Sunday approaches, we need to acknowledge that we are doing our best, from under the weight of all that’s wearing us down. We need now to turn our eyes and gaze to Jesus. Think of Him on his Cross, overwhelmed physically, emotionally, spiritually and totally beaten. Think of Him with His eyes focused upward, to the ultimate goal. Jesus is a perfect example of what to do when we feel beaten and bruised. It is a matter of fact that most of us are stuck, whether it be with a particular sin, difficulties in the Spiritual Life, or difficulties in the physical day-to-day life; and we sometimes lose hope in all of this. The events of Holy Week teach us that there is always hope! The Cross is truly the throne of Love, Mercy and Hope. Without the action of Good Friday there could be no Easter Sunday and all that it brings. We are a people of the Resurrection, but for every Easter there has to be a Calvary. Our faith, our hope and our salvation rest on the events of this week. So, if grace abounds, surely it abounds more abundantly during this most Holy of weeks. May we unite ourselves more closely with the crucified and Risen Lord over these days. May the Cross be our protection and blessing, and may the Resurrection be our new life, love and hope. And as we move towards Easter Sunday, let us try to remember all that Jesus went through. That He prayed for the circumstances to change. And so can we. That He ministered to others in the midst of His suffering. And so can we. That He prayed for those who abused Him. And so can we. That He forgave those who did him harm. And so can we. That He rose from the grave, and brought victory and salvation to the world. So that we might have life, love and hope in the midst of our own suffering.

In our weaknesses, He is strong. In His miraculous resurrection, we have hope and love eternal. And, really, what else do we need? So rise up and never give up on yourself or on others because life is short and we all need a bit of a resurrection experience in our life no matter who we are now and then and when it happens everything falls into place. So rise up and give your faith a chance this Easter whatever you believe that to be. The true greatness of human life rests not in power or riches but in the love of Jesus, a love which shares, which strives to be close to humanity, particularly those who suffer, and which gives itself to the service of the other. Let me leave you with a famous prayer written by St. Charles de Foucauld called the Prayer of Abandonment which I love to pray each morning. "Father, I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will. Whatever you may do, I thank you: I am ready for all, I accept all. Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures - I wish no more than this, O Lord. Into your hands I commend my soul: I offer it to you with all the love of my heart, for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself, to surrender myself into your hands without reserve, and with boundless confidence, for you are my Father. Amen”