{"id":54592,"date":"2024-03-28T17:26:11","date_gmt":"2024-03-28T21:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/?p=54592"},"modified":"2024-04-09T11:42:16","modified_gmt":"2024-04-09T15:42:16","slug":"an-easter-2024-message-from-dean-pak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/an-easter-2024-message-from-dean-pak\/","title":{"rendered":"An Easter 2024 Message from Dean Pak"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Reading Julian of Norwich for my course on medieval female mystics has been an unexpected sacred gift as Holy Week and Easter draw near. As a 14th<\/sup>-century anchoress with one window to the church and one window to the world, Julian inhabited a world devastated by plague, war, hunger, famine, political unrest, and religious dissension. Amid such profound anguish, she writes of receiving sixteen vivid visions of the passion of Christ.<\/p>\n

Now\u2014true confession\u2014I have often found theologies that focus on the passion of Christ difficult to embrace. They risk a glorification of suffering. They too frequently depict a God who demands a debt to be paid or the necessity of a sacrifice or suffering to bring redemption. I find it hard to square such a God with the God of Shalom in whom \u201csteadfast love and faithfulness meet and righteousness and peace kiss\u201d (Ps 85:10).<\/p>\n

Julian\u2019s sixteen visions delineate graphically gruesome depictions of Christ on the cross. One might easily dismiss these as a glorification and unhealthy preoccupation with Christ\u2019s suffering. Yet, such completely misses Julian\u2019s purpose. In her steady, unceasing gaze upon Christ\u2019s passion, Julian is not attempting to make suffering meaningful. Rather, she invites us to discipline ourselves not to look away from the suffering of those around us. She bids us to resist the wicked habits that condition us to find some more comfortable place to rest our gaze.<\/p>\n

In a world shattered by devastating wars, widespread ideological divides with dire consequences, and scarcity of resources for basic, daily life\u2014circumstances that sound eerily familiar\u2014Julian encountered a God of intimate compassion who stands in radical solidarity with human suffering, seeking to bear its burdens and to shape a community who refuses to avert their eyes until such suffering has ceased. To be Easter people is not to be a triumphal, conquering people. To be Easter people is to be a people of compassion and radical love who stand in the gap between Good Friday and Easter, vigilant to be fully present to and for one another, to see and not look away, to walk with the wounded, remain with the weary, and witness to resurrection.<\/p>\n

\u2013 G. Sujin Pak, dean\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading Julian of Norwich for my course on medieval female mystics has been an unexpected sacred gift as Holy Week and Easter draw near. As a 14th-century anchoress with one window to the church and one window to the world, Julian inhabited a world devastated by plague, war, hunger, famine, political unrest, and religious dissension. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12612,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[203],"tags":[194,301],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54592"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12612"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54592"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54594,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54592\/revisions\/54594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}