Happy Easter Monday! I hope your Easter was filled with blessings. For the next fifty days, our first reading will be from Acts of the Apostles. Today we hear part of Peter's amazing speech at Pentecost. Peter tells the people that David's tomb is occupied, but Jesus' tomb is empty. Alleluia!
This week, all of the Gospel readings will be post-resurrection accounts from one of the Gospels. Today it is from Matthew 28. "Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went away quickly from the tomb, fearful yet overjoyed, and ran to announce the news to his disciples."
This seems a paradox, doesn't it? Can fear and joy coexist? Apparently so. And the women were not just joyful, but overjoyed. I believe we can be both at the same time as well. It works like this: we're unsure of the future, causing fear. Yet we know that God is in control, and that his will can be accomplished, despite our fears, causing great joy. If you're struggling with fear, let joy come in! Soon you'll find that the joy of Jesus will help you overcome your fears.
Father, you know how uncertainty leads us to fear. Fill us with the joy of the risen Jesus, that our fears will be conquered by joy. Amen.
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I was driving to the hospital Monday, during the show, when you brought up this topic. My brothers and I had to make the difficult decision to remove my mother from a ventilator, as the doctors had advised us she had no hope of recovery.
These were two of the feelings I was experiencing very strongly.
Fearful, that we were about to face the unknown in the first death of a parent, yet joy, because I had determined this was the the truest test of my faith I had ever experienced. If I truly believe, I trust that my mother was in a state of grace and she was about to enter heaven. If I let the earthly fear and anxiety consume me, what amount of faith do I profess?
I was able to overcome the fear and my mother experienced as peaceful a death as I think could be humanly possible. It was if the angels carried her spirit from that room. Jesus won the victory over death, and I believe!