This is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis

As Straw

This past Sunday (well, actually, Saturday night-early Sunday morning) was my first Pascha service. Things began in pitch-black darkness in the church building. Fr. Patrick lit the Paschal candle. Three times he chanted, "Come, take of the light, the light that shall not be overtaken by night, and glorify Him who is risen from the dead." The rest is a blur of wonder. I witnessed things, Horatio, which are not dreamt of in your philosophy.

It was said of St. Thomas that after praying in the Mass, he stopped writing the work we know as the Summa Theologica. The monks wondered why. The only explanation they received was that he had seen things in comparison to which all his works were as straw.