"How do you reach Easter when you're stranded in Gethsemane?"

A beautiful, poignant article by a woman who unexpectedly lost her mother right before Easter. She writes:

If the Easter message does not apply in every single circumstance of life—however sordid, tragic or mundane—then the resurrection is either a pipe dream or we have failed to glimpse its significance. If the risen Christ cannot answer our deepest agony, redeem the most grotesque sin, kindle flame in the coldest heart, then Christianity, and Jesus Himself, are just childish, pious concepts.

"If Christ is not risen," St. Paul writes, "our faith is in vain."

But if He is...then, as St. Augustine says, the Christian should be an alleluia from head to foot.

Read the rest here.