This week I continue my Easter reflection with you.   Easter is all about life. Easter invites me to explore, prayerfully, the question: What is the quality of my life? There is no Christianity or hope without Easter. Easter adds a depth to life -- how we “do life”. Last Thursday we heard Jesus saying to us: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life”. Eternal life is not something we have to wait for. It is a quality of life we have now as we grow a deeper relationship with Jesus and share that life with others. Dying people have shared their regrets over not having cultivated that kind of life.

Last weekend I shared with you two of the “Top five regrets shared by dying people”. This weekend I share with you another of these regrets. In those top five regrets they are saying, I wish I had been more present to life -- MY LIFE.

I begin by sharing simple but profound words from the great Vietnamese psychologist, Thich Nhat Hahn in The Present Moment: “The present moment is where life can be found, and if you don’t arrive there, you miss your appointment with life. You don’t have to run any more. Breathing in, we say, “I have arrived”. Breathing out, we say, ‘I am home’. The dying have been sharing their regrets of not having been more attentive to life and developing a deeper quality of life. In our busy culture we have become “so far and so fast”. We feel under pressure daily. Our spirits are tired, weary and cranky. We feel empty, disillusioned and lacking in meaning. We have no time to breathe nor to “stop and stare” at life. We long for fulfillment while our souls hunger for nourishment. Thomas More, in his book, “Care of the Soul”, tells us that when the soul is neglected it doesn’t go away. Rather, it appears symptomatically in obsessions, addictions, violence, and loss of meaning. While the temptation is to run from each of these symptoms, it is in caring for the soul that we are able to reclaim the depth and meaning of the life we are invited to live because of Easter. The regrets of dying people point to a diminished life.

The third regret “I wish I would have had the courage to express my feelings”. Many of us go through life suppressing our feelings in order to keep peace with others. How many people live by the maxim, I keep the peace at any price. When we deny our feelings we deny a significant part of ourselves, and we alienate ourselves. Feelings unlock the door to the inner self. Suppressing feelings of resentment and bitterness cultivate many illnesses. We cannot control the reactions of others. However, by speaking honestly, at an emotional level it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level.

The cost of hanging on to negative feelings is very high. The golden rule is do not bottle up your anger, resentment, sadness, etc. How we deal or not deal with our feelings is directly connected to our family of origin. Some unhidden family rules are destructive: don’t feel, don’t talk, and don’t trust. If this has been our experience of life at home and we forget it or fail to change it, we are doomed to repeat this pattern. As Doesteosky, author of The Brothers Karamazov, wrote; “Above all don’t lie to yourself. The man (person) who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and others”.

Let each of us spend some time reflecting gently on our lives and how we might cultivate a deeper Easter spirit within us that would express itself in a life of joy and happiness.

Choose life consciously this week.

Next week I will continue our Easter Reflection with the “The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.”

Fr. Padraig