Ariana Grande. Steve Colbert. Michael Phelps. Vincent van Gogh. Lincoln. Emily Dickinson. Barbra Streisand. Marcus Morris. Donny Osmond. Paula Deen. All these famous individuals and many more have admitted that they suffer anxiety. Singers. Sports figures. Performers. Political figures. Writers. TV hosts and chefs. No profession is exempt. Even famous biblical figures coped with anxiety. Both Jonah and Job are classic examples of the struggle against anxiety and depression.

From the third century come our earliest representations of the Mother of Jesus. One image is found on the walls of the Catacombs of St. Priscilla in Rome. Mary is holding the child Jesus and nursing him. Another image is found on a sarcophagus in the Vatican. It depicts the three Magi adoring Jesus held in the arms of Mary. When Christians, therefore, began to represent Mary in art, they always portrayed her with her son. The child and the mother together.

Somalia. Kashmir. Darfur. Myanmar. South Sudan. Syria. Afghanistan. Iraq. The list of wars and conflicts can go on and on. At the present moment, there are about 40 active conflicts around the world. At any one moment, there are people in 15 different places fighting. Some for their independence and freedom. Others for the right to their own resources. Willing to take up arms and die, they are fighting for their ideals and beliefs.

On June 3, 2003, Bill Wasik, a senior editor at Harper’s magazine, orchestrated the first flash mob at New York’s Macy’s department store. Soon after, flash mobs erupted in the Hyatt, in a shoe boutique in Soho and then in Central Park. People appeared, suddenly assembled together, performed a dance with lively music and then dispersed into the crowd.

The sealed tomb is broken open. “Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep… For just as in Adam all die, so too in Christ shall all be brought to life” (1 Cor 15:20). At death, our life is changed, not ended.