When I began this blog, I mentioned something about coming to terms with death. All men are mortal. Caius is a man. Therefore Caius is mortal. Yes, true enough, but as Ivan Illych says on his deathbead in Tolstoy’s short story “The Death of Ivan Illych,” “The syllogism… had always seemed to him correct as applied to Caius, but certainly not as applied to himself. That Caius—man in the abstract—was mortal, was perfectly correct, but he was not Caius, not an abstract man, but a creature quite, quite separate from all others.”
Well, this is the right weekend to think about coming to terms with death. This evening begins what Catholics call the Easter Triduum. During it Christians first remember the Last Supper. Jesus knew he is going to be arrested, condemned, and executed. And so he gives his followers a way to remember him and to share in his life. Then by agonizing prayer, he surrenders his will. This is the way it must be and he acts with confidence in the face of doom.
Tomorrow is Good Friday, the day of Christ’s death by crucifixion. Christian believe that just as his life was for others, so his death was for others. The cross is the supreme example of redemptive suffering—an idea almost completely lost today, but really not that hard to understand. A mom in labor experiences redemptive suffering. Yes, it hurts badly. Yes, she suffers, but the pain releases her child to life in the world, an enormous good. It wasn’t “meaningless” suffering. Can our aging, ailing, and eventual deaths be redemptive as well? Does all of our aging, ailing, and eventual deaths have meaning—meaning apart from the meaning we subjectively give them? I believe they do.
Holy Saturday is far and away the strangest day of the year. On Holy Saturday, nothing happens. Oh, we’ll be doing preparation for Easter dinner, but it always ends up being a still quiet day of limbo—a hanging between death and life.
By 8PM we’ll be in church (since at 8:15, there won’t be any more seats) for the Easter Vigil that begins at 8:30. A solemn procession, baptisms, confirmations, and Bible reading after Bible reading in the dark until… “Christ is Risen!” the blare of all the lights coming on at the same second, and the Last Supper all over again.
Living, dying, dead, more alive than ever.
In participating in the mystery of the Easter Triduum year after year (actually week after week since every Sunday is a little Easter), we come to terms with the true facts that all men are mortal, Jim is a man, therefore Jim is mortal, but because of the cross and the resurrection, there’s more to the syllogism and to the story.
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