Fr Senan Furlong OSB
“I saw a hyacinth bulb being planted in a bowl. I thought, there is a wonderful fragrance locked up in that bulb; I knew of course that there is no place in the bulb a fragrance is locked up… Nevertheless there is in the bulb a potential which eventually will become the characteristic
fragrance as the flower opens…”
Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep in death. Alleluia!
Today we immerse ourselves in the mystery of Christ and his resurrection—Christ the very mystery of God, prepared before the beginning of the world, hidden in God, concealed from previous generations and now revealed to the saints. It is a mystery that unfolds every day; spreading its fragrance and opening up a new future for us all.
Easter is a promise, a gift. It is also a work, a mission to be carried out in the midst of the joys and sorrows, the beauty and chaos of our broken world. Yes, Christ has conquered death and given us the promise of eternal life. But the struggle between death and life, darkness and light, is ongoing and inescapable, and Good Friday continues to be daily re-enacted in the lives of so many. We live in a world longing for and in need of resurrection—a world ravaged by war and violence, inequality and injustice, hatred and self-destruction. In our own lives too, we long for resurrection, when it feels the powers of darkness and death have the last word.
But they don’t have the final say. For Christ’s resurrection is the true hope of the world. It is the power of the grain of wheat, the power of that love which humbles itself and gives itself to the very end, and thus truly renews the world. Christ not only laboured and struggled against death in the dramatic final days that ended in crucifixion; he laboured for life throughout his earthly existence, cultivating the gift of resurrection everywhere he went. The whole of his life was, as it
were, an unfolding Easter, bringing light where there was darkness, healing where there was pain, acceptance where there was abandonment. And this work of Easter—the task of being
heralds of resurrection, propagators of life, diffusers of hope—has been bequeathed to all of us who invoke his name.
The hyacinth bulb remains just a bulb unless it awakens and the flower opens. Resurrection is awakening the potential so that we become a fragrance of Christ to God and to one another. Therefore, we are encouraged to be imitators of God; and walk in love just as Christ loved us, giving himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Mahatma Gandhi once remarked: A rose does not need to preach. It simply spreads its fragrance. As with the rose, so too with the hyacinth, and so too may it be in our lives. Draw us after you, O Risen Christ; we shall make haste to follow you, in the fragrance of your garments, to breathe the fragrance of resurrection.
Christ is risen. Alleluia!