Easter Friday

Julian of Norwich by Robert Lentz with a hazelnut in hand; the earth a hazelnut in God's hand

Sometimes we hope for and expect too much of feasts and seasons and walk away from them disappointed. Sometimes we want Christmas to make us merry and Easter to make us happy. No holy day, no season of holy days can promise now, in full, the peace they celebrate and proclaim. St. Augustine put it beautifully, "Our hearts are restless, Lord, until they rest in you..."

Christmas and Easter come as the calendar indicates with little, even no regard for our individual feelings, difficulties, losses and emotions. Every feast and season, of course, offers healing and peace for in giving ourselves to the celebration (not always an easy thing to do) we let go into God's hands the feelings in need of resolution, the losses in need of healing, the difficulties in need of healing, the emotions in need of serenity.

Julian of Norwich also explores the restlessness of our hearts and souls in this image of a hazelnut:

The Lord showed me a little thing,
the size of a hazelnut,
which seemed to lie in the palm of my hand;
and it was as round as any ball.
I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding,
and thought, "What may this be?"

I was answered in a general way, thus:
"It is all that is made."

I wondered how long it could last;
for it seemed as thought it might suddenly fade away to nothing,
for it was so small.

And I was answered in my understanding:
"It lasts, and ever shall last;
for God loves it.
And even so has everything being --
by the love of God.

In this little thing I saw three properties.
The first is that God made it:
the second that God loves it:
the third, that God keeps it.

And what did I behold in this?
Truly, the Maker, the Lover, and the Keeper.

And until I am substantially united to God,
I can never have full rest nor true bliss;
that is to say, until I am so fastened to God
that there is no created thing at all between
my God and me.

For this is the reason
why we are not all in ease of heart and of soul:
that we seek here rest in this thing that is so little
and where no rest is in,
we know not our God that is almighty, all wise and all good.
For God is rest itself.

- Julian of Norwich


- ConcordPastor