The Deacon's Bench - April, 2009

I’ve never met a little person who doesn’t enjoy playing “peek-a-boo,” have you? They all seem so surprised and delighted to hide or be hidden and then re-discover their playmates. Maybe this simple game that we play when we’re little can give us some insight into the Easter experience, too.

People who study these things speculate that “peek-a-boo” helps children learn and trust that people who disappear from sight will actually return. Playing “peek-a-boo” helps children practice seeing someone go away and coming back...over and over again, until they are confident that’s what will always happen.

The delight that children experience in the game is also tied closely to the experience they have of some form of control over what happens. In some sense, they feel they can make their playmate reappear. Of course, as we grow up, we come to understand that the person who “disappeared” never really went away at all, nor was it us that made them reappear.

So it is with Easter. Every time we celebrate Easter, maybe even every time we celebrate mass, and maybe even every time we simply take time out to pray, we encounter the risen Jesus Christ and review the lesson that He who has disappeared from sight will actually return. Of course, as we grow in faith, we come to realize that Jesus never really went away at all, and it really isn’t us who make him reappear.

St. Paul tells us that Jesus gave us himself at the Last Supper. It’s the way in which his presence and life is concretely realized and spread in our community. Think about it for a moment – if you have no body, you certainly aren’t present, are you? And if your body has no blood in it, it’s not alive, right?

To receive Jesus’ body and blood is to receive his presence and his life – to become his presence and life for ourselves and for those around us. It’s how the resurrected Jesus remains present and alive from one generation to the next. Those who see that in the Eucharist know that it’s just as St. Paul says, it’s no longer us who live, but Jesus who lives within us.

It might take a fair amount of living before that becomes evident, but when it does, it’s as if God suddenly looks at us from behind the veil of our limited understanding, greets us with a smile and a wink, and tells us “Peek-a-boo, I love you!”

Deacon Tim’s Emergency Easter Recipe #1 – υπίλοιπο σούπα

1 can mushroom soup (σούπα)
Easter dinner residue (υπίλοιπο), available in abundance in most local refrigerators
Carefully separate the good stuff from the bad stuff and put it (the good stuff) in a pot along with the mushroom soup. Throw the bad stuff out without pity or remorse: look, it has already been a week; it should be blindingly obvious by now that nobody wants it.
Mix well and heat it up. Serve on toast, by candlelight.