Daybreaks: Daily Reflections for Lent & Easter
by Ron Rolheiser, OMI

“The works that the Father gave me to accomplish,
these works that I perform testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me”.

(JOHN 5:36)

“The Gospels tell us that we can reach eternal life only by undergoing the darkness and death of Gethsemane and the cross. The mystics call this the dark night of the soul and assure us that the real transformation of soul does not happen at Disneyland but at Calvary.   

However, there can be a dangerous naivete in all this. The idea is too much that you should just let yourself free-fall into the great unknown, with all its darkness and chaos, and growth and happiness are assured. That isn’t always true. Far from it.

To enter the darkness, to go into the desert, to face your demons, you must first have the assurance that you will be held by someone or something – God, a loved one, a family, a faith that is strong enough to see you through – while undergoing such a journey. 

We see this in Jesus’ own paschal journey. He entered the darkness and chaos of Gethsemane and the cross, just as he had once entered the desert, not alone but with another. He was being held by his Father. 

Jesus was in the dark night, free-falling, but he wasn’t alone. He surrendered himself and jumped over love’s cliff, but only because he trusted that someone, his Father, would catch him before he hit the ground. All of us might want to ponder that before we counsel ourselves or others to too hastily abandon safety for chaos. The journey from Disneyland to Calvary should not be undertaken naively” (40).