{"id":17519,"date":"2010-04-08T11:04:41","date_gmt":"2010-04-08T15:04:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.firstthings.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/?p=17519"},"modified":"2017-03-10T17:54:18","modified_gmt":"2017-03-10T17:54:18","slug":"staring-into-the-empty-tomb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/2010\/04\/08\/staring-into-the-empty-tomb\/","title":{"rendered":"Staring into the Empty Tomb"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u201cThere, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.\u201d
\n\u2014 J.R.R. Tolkien<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The news is terrible, disheartening, troubling<\/strong>, horrific -choose your adjective; my still-looking-for-a-job Elder Son used the word \u201cshell-shocked\u201d last night, in reference to the troubling news he was reading, and I noted that \u201cshell-shocked\u201d is a phrase I am seeing a lot in my email, where people feel like the whole nation is being \u201cstress-tested.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

People are feeling \u201cshell-shocked\u201d by the national news, the international news; the secular news, the church news. There are experts who are shocked every week<\/a> by what they do not know. There are Wikileaks<\/a> and responses<\/a>. There is war<\/a>. There is condescension<\/a>, there are venal truths<\/a> and venal distortions<\/a>. There are the sick<\/a>, and the injured and the much sinned<\/a> against<\/a>, and the physically<\/a> and spiritually<\/a> trapped, who need prayer, attention, help.<\/p>\n

Spend a half-hour reading the headlines and you emerge blinking and dazed. When you are dazed, it is easy to be blind-sided, to make a misstep, and fall into cynicism or worse, despair.<\/p>\n

I am right there with you, gang, stumbling around, trying to process all of this information, gleaning bits of wheat where they drop amid all the chaff. The pickings seem very slim right now, and thoroughly mixed in with the choking weeds. To one in a dazed state, they are very easy to miss.<\/p>\n

Last night, I admit, I slipped into a bit of despair.<\/strong> Awoke this morning with this running through my head, as it has before<\/a>:
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cEverything\u201d is about nothing.
\nEverything ended with the sacrifice of the Lamb.
\nAll is consummated.
\nWe are forever and always at the Last Supper, at the Crucifixion, at the Resurrection.
\nTime ended with the tearing of the veil and the rolling back of the stone.
\nThe rest is illusion and catching up.
\nThere is nothing to be afraid of.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is nothing to be afraid of.\u201d I believe it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And yet, even after praying the Divine Office, which is always my wellspring, even after my beloved Office of Readings and the Morning Prayer, I needed more. I needed new words.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, after the readings for mass, I them in the endlessly useful resource that is Magnificat Magazine<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Third Day<\/strong><\/p>\n

The immovable stone tossed aside,
\nThe collapsed linens,
\nThe blinding angel and the chalky guards:All today like an old wood-cut.<\/p>\n

The earthquake on the third day,
\nThe awakened sleeper,
\nThe ubiquitous stranger, gardener, fisherman:
\nFaded frescoes from a buried world.<\/p>\n

Retell, renew the event
\nIn these planetary years,
\nFor we were there and he is here:
\nIt is always the third day.<\/p>\n

Our world-prison is split;
\nAn elder charity
\nBreaks through these modern fates.
\nPublish it by Telstar,
\nDiffuse it by mundovision.<\/p>\n

He passes through the shattered concrete slabs,
\nThe vaporized vanadium vaults,
\nThe twisted barbed-wire trestles.<\/p>\n

A charity coeval with the suns
\nDispels the deep obsessions of the age
\nAnd opens heart-room in our sterile dream:
\nA new space within space to celebrate
\nWith mobiles and new choreographies,
\nA new time within time to set to music.
\n \u2014 Amos Niven Wilder
\n(NT Scholar and brother of Thornton Wilder)<\/em><\/p>\n

It is still<\/em> Easter, after all,<\/strong> and we are still peering into the empty tomb, and trying to comprehend.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Related:<\/strong>
\nThe Hidden Mass on the Road to Emmaus<\/a>
\nTo Suffer with Christ and with the Church<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThere, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,26,31,44,51,58,61,99,209,257],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-remaking-ourselves","category-benedict-xvi","category-bloodless-coup","category-catholicism","category-christians-in-exile","category-crisis-opportunity","category-crucible-of-faith","category-faith-perspective","category-prayer","category-touch-of-evil"],"yoast_head":"\nStaring into the Empty Tomb<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\""There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. 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