Yesterday morning, my good friend, Monsignor Patrick Brankin, and I had coffee. Our discussion focused on Lent and Easter when we began lamenting contemporary views of life and death, both within Christendom and without. He ran out to the car and handed me a copy of a small book, “O Death, Where is Thy Sting?” by Alexander Schmemann. In preparation for the mysteries of this weekend, I spent the afternoon reading it. It is profound and joyful. I would highly recommend it, as I would anything by Schmemann. Here is an excerpt on what happens when we understand Christian faith in terms of the Cross instead of as a form of help or therapy to cope with difficulty: ”And something strange happens to us. Suddenly from our own problems, from our own difficulties, and even from our own sufferings we turn our attention to Another, to this silently suffering Person, to this night of horror, betrayal, and loneliness, but also of celebration, of love and of victory. Something strange happens to us: perhaps without even knowing it one begins to feel how this cheap and egotistical religion, a religion once demanding only something for itself, demanding that even God would be in its service, evaporates! And it becomes clear, spiritually clear, that at its depths religion is entirely about something else. That in the end it is not all about comfort or help, but about joy and victory.”