Diocesan News
Bishop of Meath's Easter Reflection
2009 Easter Reflection
Most Revd Dr Richard Clarke, Bishop of Meath and Kildare
Easter is most clearly the victory of life over death, the victory of God in Christ over the heartbreak of human death. But Easter may be seen also in terms of another and related victory – a victory which may also mould and pattern the everyday life of Christian disciples, today as in every age. This is the victory of love over hate and despair.
The great sixteenth century poet Edmund Spenser (a man with celebrated connections with Youghal and its environs) wrote a beautiful sonnet for Easter, 'Most Glorious Lord of Life'. It concludes with the striking couplet,
So let us love, dear love, like as we ought.
Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.
Love is not blind, vapid or stupid. Love is the lesson we need constantly to re-learn. Others are to be seen and loved, not for their usefulness to us, nor for their attractiveness, nor even for their generosity towards us. They are also to be loved by us for what they might become with love, our love. Holy Week leads seamlessly into Easter with precisely this message – that God loves us for what we are (unlovable as that may well be) but that he also sees beyond this to our 'divine potential', all that he has created us to be, and all that we are called to become.
The lesson of Easter cannot be separated from the lesson of Calvary. This eternal message is that just as we are redeemed by Christ’s unstinting and relentless love, so we are called to love others in the light of Christ's love, so that they too may become the fullness of all that God in love has created them to be.
ENDS