Scripture:
Reflection:
The older I get, the more I go looking into the tomb like Mary Magdalene in today’s Gospel selection, wondering what has happened to the good old days. I reminisce about being a young man ready and eager to face the world. I romanticized then, that I would make a fortune, become independently wealthy, retire from the world of work and enter politics where I would straighten out this crazy world. I would set everything right
Supposing you live in the same world I do, you know I didn’t succeed. “I” couldn’t do it. I do believe the world is a bit of a better place because I’ve lived. That’s not so much because I changed others, but because I have changed. For one thing, I’ve learned that if the world is going to change, it is because we will come together and as Mahatma Gandhi says, be the change we want to see in the world. I see that happening all over my world today.
I see it in Pax Christi USA. I see it in my fellow Passionists, paragons of compassion. I see it in the struggling of my friends to live simple honest lives in common, retelling time and again, the story of Jesus, a story of not only hope, but one also of realized resurrection. “This is the day the Lord has made, let us be glad and rejoice in it.” (PS 118:24) I need only open my eyes and hear the Lord’s voice.
I hear the Lord’s voice in the ear-piercing play of the children frolicking when I pass by the local school yard, when I share lunch with my fellow seniors at the local Golden Diners and of course, when I take the time to notice the earth’s bursting forth in bewitching smells and colors, and oh, the sound of the robin who has at long last returned to my neighborhood. Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!
Dan O’Donnell is a Passionist Partner and a longtime friend of the Passionists. He lives in Chicago.