Surprise!

 

 

Ever since earliest childhood, we have been delighted by a surprise.

Remember playing Peek A Boo? What delighted us as infants was the element of surprise in that infant game.

A happy surprise brings forth delight, joy, a lifted spirit.

Recently our neighbors Jack and Suzanne found 5 baby quail eggs in the planter on their patio. They almost missed this surprising find because the mother quail had hidden the egg under leaves.

We now watch and waitt for the first cracking open of those eggs.

"Unless the seed falls into the ground it remains just a seed..."

There are hints of surprise and glory all around us.

Especially in Spring when nature makes all things new again.

 In his book, "The Name of God Is Mercy," Pope Francis critiques the "Scholars of the Law," those who sit in elevated judgment seats high above the messy crowds and judge from afar. He writes thar "they havr their hearts and minds closed  to surprises: the prodigal returnig home, the woman in adultery rising up fron the dirt, the Good Thief on the cross about to enter paradise.

Cynicism is the polar opposite of surprise" "There is nothing new under the sun!"

But there is something NEW, something VERY SURPRISING.

At the dawning of the Easter light, the shadowed tomb is empty.

Surprise!

" On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb!"

Her heart must have leaped,  First with concern: "Where have they taken him?" and then with overflowing  joy as Jesus appeared and she threw her arms around him in an embrace of rapture.

 And then she becomes the Apostle of the Resurrection as she is sent on a apostle's mission to take the  surprise news with his brothers.

Introit:

"I have risen and am with you still, Alleluia

You have laid your hand upon me. Alleluia. Too wonderful to me, this knowledge.

Alleluia!

Alleluia!