{"id":914,"date":"2009-04-19T14:38:28","date_gmt":"2009-04-19T19:38:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hoodedhawk.com\/blog\/?p=914"},"modified":"2009-04-19T14:38:28","modified_gmt":"2009-04-19T19:38:28","slug":"seven-stanzas-at-easter-john-updike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hoodedhawk.com\/blog\/seven-stanzas-at-easter-john-updike\/","title":{"rendered":"Seven Stanzas at Easter (John Updike)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At today&#8217;s Mass during his homily Fr. Jim quoted a <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/John_Updike\">poem by John Updike<\/a> (1932-2009) that I had not heard before but found quite moving:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Seven Stanzas at Easter<\/p>\n<p>Make no mistake: if He rose at all<br \/>\nit was as His body;<br \/>\nif the cells\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 dissolution did not reverse, the molecules<br \/>\nreknit, the amino acids rekindle,<br \/>\nthe Church will fall.<\/p>\n<p>It was not as the flowers,<br \/>\neach soft Spring recurrent;<br \/>\nit was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled<br \/>\neyes of the eleven apostles;<br \/>\nit was as His flesh: ours.<\/p>\n<p>The same hinged thumbs and toes,<br \/>\nthe same valved heart<br \/>\nthat\u00e2\u20ac\u201cpierced\u00e2\u20ac\u201cdied, withered, paused, and then<br \/>\nregathered out of enduring Might<br \/>\nnew strength to enclose.<\/p>\n<p>Let us not mock God with metaphor,<br \/>\nanalogy, sidestepping, transcendence;<br \/>\nmaking of the event a parable, a sign painted in the<br \/>\nfaded credulity of earlier ages:<br \/>\nlet us walk through the door.<\/p>\n<p>The stone is rolled back, not papier-m\u00c3\u00a2ch\u00c3\u00a9,<br \/>\nnot a stone in a story,<br \/>\nbut the vast rock of materiality that in the slow<br \/>\ngrinding of time will eclipse for each of us<br \/>\nthe wide light of day.<\/p>\n<p>And if we will have an angel at the tomb,<br \/>\nmake it a real angel,<br \/>\nweighty with Max Planck\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s quanta, vivid with hair,<br \/>\nopaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen<br \/>\nspun on a definite loom.<\/p>\n<p>Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,<br \/>\nfor our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,<br \/>\nlest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are<br \/>\nembarrassed by the miracle,<br \/>\nand crushed by remonstrance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At today&#8217;s Mass during his homily Fr. Jim quoted a poem by John Updike (1932-2009) that I had not heard before but found quite moving: Seven Stanzas at Easter Make no mistake: if He rose at all it was as His body; if the cells\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 dissolution did not reverse, the molecules reknit, the amino acids [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[25],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hoodedhawk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hoodedhawk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hoodedhawk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoodedhawk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoodedhawk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=914"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoodedhawk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":916,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoodedhawk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914\/revisions\/916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hoodedhawk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoodedhawk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoodedhawk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}