an Easter poem for the doubters

(and the grieving, and the broken, and the raging)

Bring in your dead.
Bring in your flattened.
Bring in your hopeless cases
and your lost causes.
Bring in your trampled hearts.
Bring in your dry eyes
that have long shed all tears.
Bring in everything that has lost its pulse.

And wait.

There is a resurrection song;
can you hear it?
There is a promise that hangs overhead.
There is a life to come,
a world unseen,
a presence of something too real to believe.
There is an angel in your ear, whispering,
no really, all shall be well.

Today we profess what we don’t really believe,
hoping that our hearts can change,
hoping against all logic
that logic does not exist.
Today we ask for grace to believe
once and for all,
and instead we are given the grace
to believe just one day more.

(Shannon K. Evans)

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This poem, along with other Ignatian prayers, poems, reflections and art, first appeared in the Jesuit Conference’s free e-book, “Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: Through the Year with Ignatian Spirituality.” Sign up to get yours at jesuits.org/ebook.