Are We Entering a New Resurrection?

When we look at the world around us, it's easy to feel like everything is splitting apart. Institutions we once trusted feel unsteady. Technology is changing faster than our hearts can keep up with. Even our own inner lives feel stretched thin, as if the familiar structures we relied on are cracking.

I've felt a lot of this in my own life lately. Most days the pace of change is faster than I can absorb. Things I thought were stable have shifted. Routines I depended on have been disrupted. Even the parts of my life that once felt predictable now seem to be rearranging themselves all at once. It's disorienting. It feels like my shell is cracking and it kind of hurts.

I recently read an article that my former Chief Information Officer shared called Modern Renaissance Theory. This article argues that today's cultural chaos resembles the late Middle Ages — a messy, disorienting "middle period" that historically precedes renewal. The author includes a subtitle, "Everything is falling apart... which is exactly how it starts," and suggests that AI, institutional breakdown, and a hunger for authenticity are early signals that the 2030s may bring a Renaissance-style rebirth rather than a collapse.

Of course I couldn't help but think about Christ's crucifixion and resurrection. And maybe that's why the solemn weight of Lent feels so sharp this year. It names what already feels true, that parts of our lives are really breaking open. Coming to confession in this season feels like stepping into that unraveling with Christ Himself, letting Him walk us through the Crucifixion with Him so that something in us can rise again with Him in the Resurrection.

He told them another parable: 'The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.' — Matthew 13:31-32

Think about a seed. From the outside, it looks whole, self-contained, and complete. A tiny world with a hard shell. The only way it can become what it was created to be is to literally crack open. The moment of transformation looks, at first glance, like destruction. The seed splits and the structure falls apart. The shape it always had before changes. If you didn't know how seeds work, you might assume something had gone terribly wrong. But inside that breaking is a green shoot already pushing upward. The collapse of the seed is not the end, but the beginning.

We've seen a version of this right on our own parish grounds. At first, the construction site looked like a pile of broken things made up of debris, torn up earth, concrete and wood chunks. Then it became a mound of dirt, shapeless and rough. But then outlines of rooms and framing begin and we see the first hints of what eventually will become our new home. What looked like ruin was actually preparation. What looked like disorder was actually the first stage of that building cracking open.

The Resurrection follows this same pattern. Christ does not rise by avoiding death. He rises by entering the deepest breaking of all and filling it with life. The cross is not a detour around suffering; it is the place where God meets it, transforms it, and overturns it. And think about that moment in between His death and His resurrection. Everything looks lost, yet God is already at work in the places we cannot see. Imagine how the disciples felt on the road to Emmaus as they walked beside Christ Himself and thought the story was over.

The cracked seed reminds us that God's work often starts in places that look like breaking. The construction site reminds us that what looks like a mess is just preparation. And the Resurrection reminds us that God brings life not by avoiding the dark, but by entering it and transforming it.

We may not know what this renewal will look like. We may not know what will happen in the next 4 hours, 4 weeks or 4 years. Seeds never predict the shape of the tree or plant. Every plant is unique in itself. We do, however, know what is true: life begins in the breaking. Resurrection starts in the dark. No matter where we are, God is already at work beneath the soil.

So, are we entering a new Resurrection? Maybe we already are, and we're only just beginning to see the first cracks where light gets in.

With Love in Christ,

Maria

---

 Originally published in the Holy Apostles E-bulletin. Subscribe here.