For the past few weeks, I felt I was being pulled in all directions due to the demands of work and ministry. Everything seemed to be happening at the same time. It felt like Murphy’s law at work—from the smallest detail going awry to serious illnesses and even deaths of close friends.
Then a week ago, we received news that a close colleague vacationing with her family abroad suffered a stroke. The following day she had to go through an operation to relieve pressure on her brain.
This incident felt like an “anomie” experience—the sociological concept popularized by Emile Durkheim that represented a sense of things breaking down, resulting in a “psychological status of worthlessness, frustration, lack of purpose and despair. In addition, since there is no idea of what is considered desirable, to strive for anything would be futile.”
I prayed for her, and I prayed hard that day, harder than I’ve ever done in the past months. I had work that day, so I went through the motions while feeling this “anomie.” Driving by myself, I prayed the rosary and the Divine Mercy chaplet several times. At the office, I tried to finish writing, including this reflection, to meet deadlines.
Having promised Matteo Guidicelli to attend his birthday party, I had to drop the writing. I saw many friends, mostly from ABS-CBN. But I slipped out early to go back to writing, among other tasks. Walking to the car in the dead of night, away from the lights, music and revelry, it hit me. I felt the empty tomb experience.
Empty tomb experience
This Easter’s Gospel from John highlights the empty tomb experience. As most of the Resurrection stories would show us, the opening setting is one of “anomie,” the sense of confusion, defeat and despair of the Cross. Imagine giving oneself totally to a work or mission, only to die a monumental and embarrassing death on a cross, the death of criminals.
In an effort to pick up the pieces or make some sense of the senselessness, we go through the motions and head to the tomb to do the ritual anointing the day after the Sabbath. Then the empty tomb confronts us.
As Fr. Jean Louis Ska, S.J., told us in a retreat, the empty tomb is equally meaningful and powerful as the Cross as a Christian symbol, but we fear the empty tomb because it asks us to confront the unknown, the solitude and “emptiness” of our life.
We fear losing control, but the empty tomb trumps us. “They did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.”
The empty tomb, though not as festive and victorious as the other depictions of the Resurrection, represents the deep core of the Christian faith.
This is the faith, hope and love of the Resurrection, to believe in, hope in, and love what the mind cannot understand and explain, but what the heart and soul embrace and rejoice in.
We must enter the empty tomb and the path must pass “anomie,” the crosses in our life. Upon entering, we experience its gift. The full power of the Cross and Resurrection hits us in the empty tomb. Christ is Risen! Alleluia!–CONTRIBUTED