On the 26th of February, year 2010, the last Jesuit missionary who left the Prelature of Ipil (in the Province of Zamboanga Sibugay) after serving for 43 years in building up the Christian communities, passed away. Fr. Angel Antonio, SJ, was well loved by the people he had served because of his simplicity, self-giving, and his gentle and loving manner of shepherding the flock. He died in his new assignment as spiritual director and confessor at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Cagayan de Oro City. On his death, the people of the Prelature of Ipil expressed their ardent desire to have the remains of Fr. Angel buried in Ipil as he had been their pastor practically the whole of his life... 43 years! However, to their dismay, the decision to have his burial in Cagayan de Oro City prevailed.
At the funeral mass, the words of Archbishop Ledesma moved many of the people from Ipil almost to tears. He said something to this effect: “The people of the Prelature of Ipil loved Fr. Angel so much that they wanted him to be buried there. Since it is not going to happen, it will not be a surprise if the people of the Prelature of Ipil put up an empty tomb for their beloved pastor.”
An empty tomb for a beloved pastor! The idea moved me to tears of joy having in the back of my mind its hopeful Easter connotations. The empty tomb, once created, will be a powerful reminder to the people that their pastor lives. He continues to live in their hearts; he lives in the love of God.
In the eyes of Easter faith, the empty tomb brings home the message that death has not the last word. Life triumphs! The eyes of Easter faith see so much meaning in the emptiness of a grave because of two kinds of vision: The vision of love and the vision of hope.
The Vision of Love. The gospel reading (Jn 20:1-9) this Easter Sunday recounts how the disciples discovered the empty tomb. Mary Magdalene first sees the stone already removed from the tomb. Peter and the other disciple whom Jesus loved come next to witness after having been informed by her. While they share the same experience, the gospel writer highlights the fact that it is the beloved disciple who comes to believe: “He saw and believed” (v. 8). While the others do not understand as yet the meaning of the empty tomb, the beloved disciple, who has had a strong bond of love with the Lord, sees through the emptiness the truth that the beloved Master is alive. His heart is sensitized by the experience of Jesus’ love to grasp quite easily through the sign of the empty tomb the Easter truth that the beloved Master lives.
Love begets faith. Hence, I would like to believe that the depth of the joy of our Easter celebration depends so much on the quality of love we have shared with the Lord and with one another. A heart that has grown fonder to the Lord each day is one that will certainly rejoice in the proclamation of Jesus’ resurrection. The flock who shared among themselves and with their pastor so many years of loving will certainly see through the sign of the empty tomb that their pastor, Fr. Angel, lives.
The Vision of Hope. There is more to the empty tomb than just an historical or archaeological import. The empty tomb is a theological illumination of the anxious groping in the darkness of Good Friday which is disturbingly expressed by the dying Messiah himself: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” Good Friday, with its impenetrable darkness, easily leads to despair. The empty tomb of Easter, however, opens up the eyes of hope and dispels the defeatist summon to despair. The empty tomb reveals that God does not abandon whom he loves even at times when he is frighteningly silent. It turns Easter into a season of hope, a season that heightens our awareness of God’s presence in spite of the evidence of his absence.
How many terrible stories of suffering and brokenness I’ve heard in my ministry! Oftentimes, I wonder how people manage to move on given the miserable and hapless situations they are in. But they do move on even if their unsettling questions remained unanswered, their burdens not lifted. It is in these people that I actually encounter existential hope. They are the Easter people who, while struggling in life, have seen the empty tomb as a guarantee that suffering and death have been vanquished; everlasting joy and life triumph. The Messiah lives and is victorious!
This season of Easter then is an invitation to cultivate love, to make our hearts sensitive to the presence of the Risen Lord among us. It is a summons too to see beyond our suffering and move on in life with hope.
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