In John Mayer's "Gravity" I find some significant after Easter thoughts. "Just keep me where the light is" and other reflections that could "send me to my knees".
As Christians we have just witnessed "all the love that his heart can stand" in the passion, death and Resurrection of Christ. So often we find ways to "throw it all away", all that Easter stuff, and go back to our routine. Maybe we need to pray: "Keep me where the light is!"
Last week's article was about spiritual inertia and overcoming the pull of gravity that keeps slowing us down. The energy of the apostles in Acts will keep us moving if we spend the time and reflect on the effects the Resurrection had on the early church.
The crucifixion isn't something that happened 2000 years ago and is finished forever. Christians in our life time are sacrificing everything for the love of Christ. True, all of us need to pour out our life's blood serving those in our care, but real martyrdom still happens more often than we realize.
In 1941 Blessed Zenon Kovalyk, a priest in the Ukraine, was imprisoned during the Soviet occupation. His aggressive preaching style was at odds with the atheistic regime: "I will receive death gladly if such is God's will, but I shall never compromise my conscience as a preacher."
Arrested by the Soviet secret police Kovalyk was brutally beaten but continued hearing confessions and giving spiritual direction in the 12 by 14 foot cell that contained 32 inmates.
When the Nazi's captured Lviv on June 29, 1941, they found Father Kovalyk's body crucified to a wall. Kovalyk's Bishop and 22 other martyr companions were beatified by Pope Paul II on June 27, 2001.
"C'mon keep me where the light is," Lord. Sometimes the world woos us with "twice as much" which "ain't twice as good" and won't sustain us "like one half could" if we follow Mayer's lyric.
Jesus' last words to Peter in John 21:19 were "Follow me". Most of us are not called to the kind of death Peter and Father Kovalyk were called to, but we are called to spend our lives in service.
Don't let the metaphorical gravity bring you down. Jesus offers us all the love we can stand. That's what inspires us to throw away our lives for others. Get behind me, gravity!
This month we have the inspirational examples of two newly canonized saints in the Catholic Church: Saints John Paul II and John XXIII who will be canonized on Sunday April 27.
"You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last" (John 15:16) and "The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep" (John 10:11) might describe the lives of these two shepherds.
"As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love" (John 15:9).
He has risen! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
"Rise, Let us be on our Way" (the title of John Paul II's next-to-last book).
