Administrator's Message
The Pastor Speaks …..
With the Grace-filled Greetings of the Season of Santa Pascha, I send some Reflections on the Central Mysteries of the Christianity i.e. the Death and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ in the context of the Season of Easter!’
Easter Butterfly Message The Seed of Resurrection Planted in us already in our Mothers’ Wombs
There are many symbols around the Easter celebration from Easter eggs and hot cross buns to Easter lilies and Spring flowers, and even the Easter bunny. Some are very helpful in the celebration of the new life in our risen Lord Jesus, while others may be a little confusing. I think the symbol of the butterfly is one of the more helpful ones. Its whole life cycle is meant to symbolize the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The first stage is that of a caterpillar which might represent Jesus’ earthly life as truly a man. The second phase is the cocoon stage, depicting Jesus’ death and burial in a tomb. The glorious third stage is that of the beautiful butterfly representing Jesus’ victorious resurrection from the dead.
Symbols of Easter Life
The sceptics of Resurrection might think like the caterpillars, which saw butterflies soared above and said to one another that we will never fly up like the butterfly.’ Yet we know that for every caterpillar the time comes when the urge to eat and grow subsides and he instinctively begins to form a cocoon around itself. The cocoon hardens and perhaps we would think that the caterpillar is dead. But one spring morning the life inside the cocoon begins to struggle, the top cracks open, and a beautifully-formed butterfly appears. And then, the butterfly glides upward, effortlessly riding the currents of the air, landing on flower after beautiful flower, as if to show off its vivid colours to the bright flowers.
Cocoon TombOn Good Friday Jesus was lifted, already bloodied and broken, onto a crossbeam of wood, where he was further taunted and derided as he slowly suffocated. By the time Friday’s sunlight was waning, Jesus would’ve been scarcely recognizable, even to his mother and few remaining friends. Jesus’ face, indeed, his tongue, would have been grossly swollen, his body bent and bruised, with shoulders almost certainly twisted from their sockets. Jesus didn’t just die. He died horribly. And because the day was failing and it took Joseph of Arimathea some time to convince Pilate the Governor to release Jesus’ body, Jesus was rushed, unanointed and unceremoniously, into the tomb. The rock was rolled in front of the opening, enclosing the corpse of Jesus in utter darkness, in a black room, and there it lay until this morning.
Most Rev. Dr. Udumala Bala
Apostolic Administrator of Archdiocese of Visakhapatnam
Metamorphosis/ TransformationWhen the caterpillar cocoons itself away from the light of the world, when he rolls the stone in front of his tiny tomb. Firstly, it’s little legs sprout from the caterpillar’s body. Then his soft, inch-worm skin gains its rigidity. Finally, delicate wings emerge from its back. And when the cocoon cracks open to the light, the beautiful butterfly flies to the heavens. The action in the cocoon is a gentle metamorphosis or transformation from one thing into another. It is a violent change, an utterly disruptive change. In order to emerge from the chrysalis, in order to enable a new birth of beauty and wonder, the caterpillar must first be entirely broken, even destroyed. The caterpillar experiences its own Good Friday. Even though they, as caterpillars, are dissolved in their tomb, somehow something of them remains when they are reconstituted and reborn. They are a new thing, but the old thing is not lost. Even before the caterpillar’s destruction, the future self already lives within.
Easter is about Jesus, and the truths of the cocoon are present in him. When Jesus emerges from the black box of the tomb, the process of transformation is disastrous. What was broken has been restored; what was dead has been gloriously resurrected. When Mary meets Jesus, she does not even recognize the man she buried two days ago! Not because of the brokenness of Jesus’ body, but because of the wonder of his rebirth. And yet see, even in rebirth the wounds on Jesus’ hands and feet remain. His is new life, but evidence of the old life, the Jesus known and loved by Mary and the others, is still present. In Jesus life, there were glimpses of the resurrected Jesus even before his Passion like at his Baptism, on the Mount of Transfiguration. Even then, the seed of resurrection dwelt within him.
We must go through the Good Friday Easter is about Jesus, and all of these things are true of him. But Easter is also about us, and they are true of us as well. These truths give us promise. We preach, again and again, that we must walk the Way of the Passion. But this is not merely a liturgical observance or pastoral responsibility. If we are to experience Easter, if we are to share in Resurrection, in our lives we must walk the Way of the Passion. We must experience Good Friday. We must be willing to be dissolved of those things to which we cling, of those things that threaten to put us in the spiritual—and sometimes earthly—grave to decay rather than rebirth. We must enter the Cocoon/larva that is pitch-dark and whose other side we cannot clearly see. Indeed, some of us may be in the stage of caterpillar or cocoon even now. We may, in various ways in our lives, be experiencing the calamity!
Christ is Risen! Why not WE? Easter is worth Good Friday! How the experience of the cocoon is worth the promise! The promise is that the tombstone will roll away. The cocoon will crack open. We will emerge from Good Friday with the Son of God into new life. And when we do, the best and good of our old lives, our passions, our virtues, our beauties, our loves will still be at the heart of us. We will be who we are, but redeemed in the light of God’s grace. Our flaws and fissures run too deep. We are too far gone. Our brokenness is irredeemable. Butterflies are but creatures. Beautiful, but bugs, whereas we are created in the very image of God. If we want to see true beauty, we need look inward, where the seed of resurrection life has been planted in us since God knit us in our mothers’ wombs. It is there right now, ready to grow, to displace and dissolve those things that separate us from God and our neighbours, to burst forth in diverse and radiant colour. “When?” we ask. Why not today? It is Easter Season, the period of resurrection, not only in a biblical story but in our lives TOO! The Lord is risen indeed. Why not We? Let us pay great attention to St. Paul in1 Cor. 15:5... “Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.
CHRIST IS RISEN! HE IS, INDEED RISEN! ALLELUIA!!
† Udumala Bala D.D.
Archbishop of Metropolitan Archdiocese of Visakhapatnam