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Easter Sunday |
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| Background: The basic theme which runs through all the Easter stories is surprise. The stories, which arose perhaps in different traditions, do not always fit into a coherent pattern. But the theme is always the same. The disciples in the upper room, especially poor Thomas, the couple (man and woman perhaps) on the road to Emmaus , Peter and his crowd on the shores of |
read the padre |
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Story: Once upon a time, during one
of the many wars in which our country has engaged, a bright young man, fresh out of high
school enlisted in the air force and entered flight training. He was an intelligent,
charming, likeable kid, thoughtful, sensitive, considerate. He qualified as a pilot and
went off to the war. On his last mission his plane was hot down. He was listed as missing
in action. His family and friends were devastated. He was too young, you promising, too
nice to die so young. Then the sad news came. He was not listed as killed in action. Then
two years later he suddenly returned, alive and well, and apparently unchanged. He did not
(perhaps could not) talk about his survival. Otherwise he was just like he used to be, no
trace of the ordeal he had endured. He went back to school, began to play basketball and
softball, dated the young woman he had gone to the prom with and was the same as ever.
Only not quite the same. As time went on his friends and family noticed he was different,
though they couldn’t quite say how. He seemed a little more thoughtful, a little more
gentle, a little more sensitive. Sometimes he seemed like a very different person
and then this changed and he was his old self again. Finally he girl he was dating asked
him when they were walking back from a softball game, “Were you really dead?” “I often thought I was, but I
guess I wasn’t.” What difference did it make she asked. He hesitated. “All
the difference in the world. Now I’ll never be afraid of death again.”
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