CathNews New Zealand

Have you noticed how the Sacred Presence brings gifts of understanding when you need them most?

It’s the sentence that lifts off the page.

It’s a few spoken words that go directly to the heart.

We all have these experiences.

One gift that has stayed with me, came from an old Jewish rabbi.

He wrote: “It’s a sin to read the Torah as fact. It is parable.”

That came like a bolt of lightning to someone who read the Gospels as history and fact.

The clue was there in Matthew: “Jesus spoke all things in parables. Without a parable was not anything he said.”

There it was. A statement made twice for emphasis.

But it took a historic rabbi to bring its importance to heart.

I don’t believe reading the Gospels as history and fact is wrong. I would call that a “head” way of understanding.

It’s when we read the Gospels as parable that we open our hearts to Jesus.

What we receive will be personal and absolutely right for the moment.

Like most of you, I have always celebrated Easter in the Church with fellow lovers of Jesus.

Good Friday is a time of sadness. Easter Sunday is resurrection and rejoicing.

The two events have separation in the tomb.

This year brought me an extra gift that I would like to share with you.

Covid was a blessing. It kept me housebound, just me, the cat and the crucifixion journey in all four Gospels.

It was a journey done with the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

With that, came the knowing that crucifixion and resurrection could not be separated.

They are a way of growth.

Jesus demonstrated that what is resurrected is always greater than what has died.

I thought of the desolate times in my own life, times when I seemed that everything I valued was taken from me.

Those situations were worsened by my inability to retaliate. To do so would have been against Christian principles.

I had times in the tomb.

Then resurrection came, and with it, the realisation that I was in a larger place.

You may wish to look at this in your own life.

When did your life seem to take a cruel turn?

When were your plans destroyed, leaving you helpless?

How did you feel?

Then what happened afterwards?

You may return to Easter and realise that Jesus did more than “die for our sins.”

He demonstrated that he was “The way, the Truth and the Life.”

And when he added, ”No one comes to the Father except by me,” he was not making a political statement. He simply told us that this was what God’s life school is about.

He lived his life for us, and continues to do so.

If you doubt this, just take a close look at the beauty in your own growth.

• Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator. Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.

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News category: Analysis and Comment.