The Flowering Tree: A message of life in a time of death
Last week I saw something very beautiful. At this strange time when we are shaken by so much fear, suffering and death, I was taken by surprise by a small unexpected joy.
I went out for the allowed daily walk into the fields below the monastery, where sheep with their new-born lambs were drinking in the stream. I looked up and saw the stump of an old tree in the middle of the field. I remember how glorious it had been. But then ten or twenty years ago lightning had struck it down on a stormy night. The stump had stood there, immoveable, dead, in the middle of the field. But I turned and I saw within the protective shell of the stump a new, delicate, beautiful tree had sprung, white with spring blossom.
The bare wood of the Cross on which Jesus hung became the flowering tree that gave life to the world. This unexpected joy of life through death made his fearful and dismayed disciples become bearers of his life and love to the world.
“The good news of Christ’s resurrection has been passed on from the first Easter by every generation until now…Easter isn’t cancelled” said the Queen firmly in her Easter message.
And so we given the task of taking that love of the Risen Lord out into to the world. As Pope Francis said at the Easter Vigil: “How beautiful it is to be Christians who offer consolation, who bear the burdens of others and who offer encouragement: messengers of life in a time of death!”
Our churches are, by force, empty, but that love is out there in the healing hands of our doctors and nurses, the busy hands of neighbours doing shopping, the supportive hands of carers of the vulnerable, the hardworking hands of those in the fields or stacking shelves to put meat and bread and fruit on our tables, and in the hopeful hands of those in isolation held together in prayer.
Amongst the tears and the loss, so many signs of love and hope. Like our prayers in a dark church on Holy Saturday awaiting the light of a flickering flame. Like the words of an angel saying “He is Risen. He has gone before you...” Like the surprising flowering of a tree in the Herefordshire countryside. So too all these new blossomings of love in our communities in the current crisis. We move forward with hope in our hearts.
A Happy and Blessed Easter to you All.
Christ is Risen!
Stay safe.
