He points out, correctly, that the joy one can have on Easter Sunday depends on how much one has denied self during Lent. The more genuine the crucificixion, the more genuine the resurrection: a kind of metaphysical chiaroscuro. He then extends that point to one's eternal destiny.
Speaking of death, the good sister said: "The measure in which we are faithful is the measure in which we will be ready to embrace the physical actuality when it comes." Tom adds:
...it is also the measure in which we will be ready to embrace the spiritual actuality when it comes. Good Friday comes once a year, and then comes Easter. Our own deaths will come once, and then comes the Day that has no evening. What it means to you when that Day comes depends very much on what you did on the days given to you in this life.I can think of no more economical way to sum up the dialectic of Christian life. It enables me to face my sufferings and duties, without despair, as the means of that self-diminishment for others which I need to make room for Christ. How much glory I attain when I die will depend on how well I made myself such a living sacrifice.
If only I could remember that the next time I'm ready to complain about the unfairness of life.
