Practicing Resurrection

Unlike most people, I have had the chance to practice rising from the dead.

The part of my vow profession ritual that friends found most powerful was not when the community and I made promises to each other, when I read my vows and signed them on the altar, when I sang the Suscipe (song of surrender), or when I received my ring as a sign of my commitment. Rather, what everyone remarks on was when I lay prostrate in front of the altar and was covered by a funeral pall as community members prayed for me. The pall was then lifted and I symbolically left behind my former self and rose to new life in Christ.

In his letter to the Romans, Paul says, “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him” (Rom 6:8). Notice that Paul doesn’t say “After we have died with Christ”; he is talking not about the death of the body but about surrendering our desires, preferences, and prejudices so we can put on the mind of Christ, which means to know we are beloved of God and to extend that love to everyone without exception. Then we too may “walk in the newness of life” (Rom 6:4).

After my profession, I still find myself struggling to love others who, in my judgment, are not worthy of the generosity God shows them. When we attempt to die to self we don’t stop being human; as Catherine (Cackie) Upchurch says, “The human experience is a doorway to God’s truth.” In my encounters with others, I continually have the opportunity to experience God’s truth of love, inclusion, and patience. And now that I have ritually practiced rising from the dead, I know it is something I am called to continue to practice daily, albeit without the altar, the pall, and the prostration.

In Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim, Edward Hays offers this prayer on Thursday mornings in the season of spring: “May my rising [from sleep] be my rehearsal for my resurrection from the dead.” Every morning upon awakening, we all have the chance to lay aside our old self and put on the mind of Christ. May God bless our daily rising to new life.