Upper Room

 

Easter in the Upper Room

With the Faith and Light community I was in Lourdes, Easter 2001.
The early morning sun is pushing away dark clouds. The foreground is still covered in the red shade of Good Friday. The hills are now turning green and there, slowly the basilica is surrounded with soft light. Only a few people are walking around. A quiet morning, still and promising.
When the towers are fully visible the sounds of the bells fill the air and soon more people appear, all walking towards the great doors of the basilica.

Our group of pilgrims is asked to go the crypt of the big church for the 8.30 Mass. The leader went ahead to prepare the altar. But suddenly another priest, a German, arrived and took over. Our leader is told to go to another church, St Joseph’s. There will be a Mass at 9.00 for English pilgrims. The stream of our pilgrims has to be turned back. We are told to gather at St Joseph’s for the 10.00 Mass. Ten minutes before ten o’clock our leader meets a Greek priest with silver vestments and large book and is told that at ten o’clock the Easter Mass will be in Greek.

There we were, on Easter morning, with no church to go to. “Where is Jesus?” One of the handicapped pilgrims, a woman, said that Jesus was alive and was waiting for us in the upper room. “Which upper room?” “We have an upper room in our hotel” one said. Very confused, we left the Sanctuary, the sacred pilgrims’ place, and after quite a walk we gathered in the lounge of our hotel, which had a split- level floor. We huddled together, all seventy of us, anxious what was going to happen. The handicapped woman cried out, “ Don’t you know that Jesus is alive and he is here!” Slowly we believed and started to sing Alleluia.

That’s how we started the Easter Mass. We heard the story again and it was like he promised. What a celebration! We broke the Bread again and recognised Jesus in one another. “Peace be with you,” we said to each other.

On that Easter morning, walking back to the church we told people what happened on the road. Many believed. Our pilgrimage was complete. “But, was it?” “No, we have to journey on and pass on the Easter story”.

So, this was my story of the Upper Room in Lourdes 2001, still fresh in my memory.

We are pilgrims of 2009, who will see, while walking along other people’s roads, the darkness of life in the pain, despair, poverty and death. The emptiness of the modern world that does not see behind the gates of mental hospitals or behind the doors of handicapped people. There are still many closed or half-open doors. But Jesus had a place in his heart for the divorced Samaritan, the good thief and for those who crucified him too.

Then on Easter morning he greeted Mary Magdalene. He walked along with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. He had breakfast with Peter on the lakeside of Galilee. He promised all of us his lifegiving Spirit.
He walks with every pilgrim who is prepared to move with him, step for step, showing to each pilgrim, “Look, there are my friends, the little ones and disadvantaged. Teach them a love song and learn from them the gift of laughter. Show them the blossoming Cross, the light of new life.”

Where is your Upper Room? Where do you wait for the Risen Lord?

Jesus knows that it is us he needs to live as pilgrims,
knowing that he is alive.

“Peace to all.”

Happy Easter 2009
John Heijnen