What are we doing during these 40 days of Easter? In more than six decades of living, I feel I’ve not yet grasped all there is to this feast of paschal mystery.
This year, my ponderings have been ordered by three images, a triptych, if you will. The center panel is baptism – a very particular point in baptism. On the left is Jonah in the belly of the whale, and on the right, Artemis II.
Not so much in Catholic baptisms, but in many other traditions, baptism requires an inundation – literally an undergoing of the waves – very like what scripture tells us Jesus experienced when he was baptized in the Jordan by John. The one being baptized is completely immersed, then drawn out into a new kind of life. This year I’ve been fixated on what happens during the inundation and then just after, during the drawing out. What good is the inundation after all – the “undergoing” of a kind of death – if the baptized person never rises from the waters? What is that new thing toward which baptism is meant to draw us?
Jonah’s story foreshadows the baptism of Jesus. It can tell us something about our own. What is going on with Jonah just before he is spewed from the fish’s mouth onto the shore, while he is still inundated, still in the belly of the big fish? In that moment he sputters out a prayer: From the womb of Sheol I cried for help, and you heard my voice.
Jonah’s experience hints that the undergoing – the inundation – leads to new birth. God is in the process of bringing him to life from the womb. Just after, he lies on the rocky shore, coughing, covered in the placental detritus of his inundation, perhaps. From there he undertakes the mission – not a pleasant one if you are a faithful Jew being sent to confront a murderous Empire. He is still not convinced – never is in, fact – but he accomplishes spectacularly what God has asked by calling for repentance: the transformation required of human beings if we are to escape being still-born, drowning in our mimetic violence.
So then, when I became alert to the fact that Artemis II would fly farther from earth than any other human craft, and that while the ship would be on the moon’s far side no communication with Earth would be possible – I was drawn to the parallels with the other images of baptism I’d been contemplating. What would happen just before that moment of radio silence? And what just after? And what would happen during those 40 minutes of silence?
It was all I needed it to be.
Just before radio silence the crew’s technical expert Christina Koch said “… to all of you down there on Earth, and around Earth – we love you from the moon.” Such a declaration! I’m sure she meant in that moment to evoke the beloved children’s book I love you to the moon and back. Here we were – being reminded of the Creator’s great love by four humans who stood in for all of us – just before they snuck away into the silence, inundated.
Then, 40 minutes later, as the capsule was drawn out of the silence and readied for its return to Earth, Koch spoke again. Once Mission Control acknowledged her she said, “It is so great to hear from Earth again. We will explore. We will build …. We will visit again… but ultimately, we will always choose Earth. We will always choose each other.”
How powerfully Christina Koch’s words echo scripture! Forty minutes of silence yielded the same results as Jonah’s inundation. In effect – choose each other. Put an end to the cycle of violence that Jonah reluctantly preached against and Jesus gave his life to heal for all time.
But what happened in the silence? We know, because the astronauts have tried their best to tell us. They said their experience de profundus – from the depths of silence – was such a profound moment that they are now “bonded forever.”
While we were observing the Triduum, Artemis II pilot Victor Glover, said: “I think as we go into Easter Sunday thinking about all the cultures all around the world – whether you celebrate it or not, whether you believe in God or not – this is an opportunity for us to remember where we are, who we are, and that we are the same thing. And that we got to get through this together.”
Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman put it this way: “It’s a special thing to be human and it’s a special thing to be on planet Earth.” He who has known his own suffering said this, not because everything is hunky-dory here – but because he knows – somehow more deeply than he knew before – that we belong to one another.
Sister Beth Murphy, OP, is the director of communication for the Dominican Sisters of Springfield.
I’m curious about how you captured the transformation moments. Those in-between times can really tell a story.