Clergy Corner: April 30, 2026

“April is the cruelest month, breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing / Memory and desire, stirring / Dull roots with spring rain.”

This is the famous opening line of T.S. Eliot’s 1922 masterpiece, The Waste Land. Why did he describe April—the heart of spring, a season of Easter, hope, and rebirth—as the “cruelest month”? In traditional Romantic poetry, spring is a celebration of life. However, in the wake of World War I, Europe was physically and psychologically devastated like a literal wasteland.

Through the modernist lens of Eliot, the rebirth of spring felt like a painful burden or even a mockery to those suffering from profound trauma and depression, because it forced “Waste Landers” to wake up and start anew when they were not ready. For Eliot, the numbness of winter was easier to endure than the demands of growth. His work poignantly captures the existential fragility of humans who, despite knowing they should embrace the vitality of life, find themselves wanting to remain settled in the “death” of winter, having lost the will to rise again.

For me, “Cruel April” carries another historical weight. Sixty-six years ago, the young people of South Korea rose up in the April 19 Revolution, toppling the corrupt Syngman Rhee regime to establish a democratic government. Yet, only a year later, the ambitious General Park Chung-Hee seized power through a military coup. For many years, his dictatorship ruled through fear, using torture and judicial violence to suppress and kill countless citizens who demanded freedom. During my own student days, every March followed the long winter break with small-scale protests for “Freedom and Democracy.” By April, universities across the nation would unite in massive demonstrations, clashing fiercely with police armed with tear gas and iron shields. It was, truly, a cruel month.

Yet, today is the final day of that cruel April! In just ten days, we will celebrate Mother’s Day. Every mother is a magnificent being who risks her own life and endures the unimaginable agony of childbirth to bring forth new life. Once the child is born, she forgets that intense pain, replaced by boundless love and joy. My own mother, who went to heaven six years ago, was no different. She was a deeply caring soul who devoted herself to raising four children and many nieces and nephews. I cannot express how much I miss her at times.

But who is the ultimate Parent to us all? It is God the Father, who carefully fashioned us with His own hands and breathed His life into us. To restore life and glory to us whose spirits had died through sin, He sacrificed His only Son, Jesus, on the cross experiencing the very agony of death Himself out of pure love. Before His arrest, Jesus offered these comforting words to His grieving disciples:

“A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born, she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world.” (John 16:21)

He was telling them that while they would grieve His death temporarily, their sorrow would be transformed into permanent joy through His Resurrection. Indeed, we can rejoice in any season because the God of Love—who spared no cost to grant us true life—is our Father. Because of life in the Resurrection, April is no longer a cruel month for us.

I pray that we all live good and righteous lives, loving God and one another, and receive glorious, resurrected bodies when Jesus comes again.