“Be lifted up, O ancient doors!”—these words of the psalm are not only liturgical symbolism, the gate of liturgy of a long-past age. They are the cry of a man in a world that is far too narrow, even if he can travel in spaceships to the moon and beyond. Christmas is only the first half of the Christian answer to this cry. Christmas tells us that there is not only the tyrant, Death: there is God, who is Life, and this God can and will reach us; he has broken a way in to us. He has found the door that was big enough for him, or rather, he has made such a door for himself. But this answer is complete only if there is not just an entrance by which God can reach us but also an exit for us. It is only satisfying if death is no longer a prison from which no one returns. And this is the content of the message of Easter. Not only is there a door in, there is also a door out. Death is no longer the house with no exits, a place of no return.
The ancient Church saw in this verse an interpretation of the article of faith “descended into hell”, referring particularly to Holy Saturday, not as a word of mourning, but as a word of victory. The Church expressed this word in poetic form: the bolts of death’s dungeon, of the world’s dungeon, are wrenched off; the ramparts are thrown down; the gates are torn from their hinges. The one who has done this, Jesus, takes the long-imprisoned Adam and Eve—that is, humanity—by the hand and leads them to freedom. Life if not a waiting room leading to the void but the beginning of eternity. The world is not the universal concentration camp but the garden of hope. Life is not the futile search for meaning, mirrored in the tangle of bureaucracy. God is not a bureaucrat; he does not live in a distant castle nor does he hide himself behind impenetrable anterooms. The door is open; it is called Jesus Christ.
The celebration of Easter is intended to show us the radiant light that streams from this door. It challenges us steadfastly to follow this radiance, which is no will-‘o-the-wisp but the brilliance of saving truth.
Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) Seek That Which Is Above
You all look so lovely in your Easter outfits. The girls’ outfits are exactly my favourite combination of mint green and pink.
I am lucky, I get to celebrate Greek Easter as well as Latin Rite easter.
We had roast lamb with garlic and rosemary and baked vegetables for dinner. A Greek tart made by my daughter’s mother in law completed the meal. Next week will be the whole shebang – red eggs red to symbolise the blood of Christ and eggs to symbolise new life, mageritsa (my favourite soup – lamb with avgolemono sauce and dill), roast lamb and vegetables , tsoureki (easter bread), koulouria and kefthethes Greek Easter biscuits. The koulouria have no beginning or end and are a symbol of infinity. The kefthethes have a piece of cloves in them and are dusted white as a symbol of Christ being wrapped in spices before being sealed in the tomb.
I make ‘mageritsa tis Australia’ because the authentic soup has all the innards of the sheep!!
Oh, how lovely to come to the end of this post and see you & Baby Benedict! You look so nice! Everyone does, really…
+ Happy Easter to you all!
Thanks, Sharon and Margaret. I almost didn’t post that last picture of me. I feel so self-conscious. Now I’m glad I did. I know my mom likes to see the growing baby photos too. (So does my sister but this time she’s here so doesn’t need the pictures.)
I love the girls’ matching dresses. I can’t do that with mine any more :(. I did buy them all identical pyjamas for Christmas, but Cherub decided hers were uncomfortable and refused to wear them so I never managed to get that all-three-matching picture.
I should have mentioned that the scrumptious dresses were from my mother-in-law. She loves buying all the little girls fancy matching holiday dresses for Christmas and Easter (the various cousins got matching dresses too—not that matched Bella and Sophie’s but that matched within their families). Lucky for me because it’s not the kind of thing I’m very good at thinking about far enough ahead of time to find the things on sale like she does.