Alleluia Anyway

This year, events during Holy Week and on Easter Sunday almost felt like they were daring us to rejoice at Christ’s victory over death and destruction. First, a fire destroyed significant portions of one of our great human icons of faith, the Notre Dame Cathedral in France. Then, more than 200 people were killed in terrorist attacks on churches and hotels in Sri Lanka. In my smaller communal circle, on Easter Sunday, a friend’s brother was killed in an accident and another friend’s father died. How can our hearts not be heavy at hearing of this cluster of deaths and upon knowing that so many people are grieving?

The following words from Richard Rohr, OFM, offer a helpful perspective:

“If we don’t believe that every cruci-fixion—war, poverty, torture, hunger—can somehow be redeemed, who of us would not be angry, cynical, hopeless? … Easter is not just the final chapter of Jesus’ life, but the final chapter of histo-ry. Death does not have the last word.”

Grieving the loss of life as we know it, whether through the death of people or any of life’s changes, is an unavoidable aspect of being human, as Jesus experienced when he wept for his friend, Lazarus. But in the midst of our grief, we need to cling to the message of Jesus’ death and resurrection—death does not have the last word. What has died has been broken open to a new experience of life. When our bodies die, we will experience the same thing. How it all happens is a mystery, but as Fr. Duane Roy said in his homily on Easter Sunday, what we do know is that God’s love never fails. And thus in the face of earthly death and destruction, we can say with surety, “Alleluia—alleluia anyway.”