NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller’s widow says it’s ‘really dark without him,’ as Cardinal Dolan offers her hope in Easter message

“It’s really dark without him,” Stephanie Diller tearfully tells me, as she tenderly speaks of her husband, NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller, killed in the line of duty Monday.

I think of that Friday strangely termed “good” on that hill called Calvary. Although mid-day, the Gospel tells us, “There was darkness over all the earth.” Such sadness so gripped the world that it trembled with spasms of grief as earthquakes erupted.

Here was a man of love, goodness, mercy, and truth viciously slain, on that cross, dying for us. This was the teacher who observed, “Greater love than this no one has, than to give his life for another.”

Jesus dying on the cross on Good Friday, with his sobbing mother underneath, with the young “beloved disciple,” John, there with her.

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Officer Jonathan Diller dying, with his wife and little boy, Ryan, mourning him.

Lots of darkness, folks, not only in our city, scourged with murders of police officers, crime, drugs, homelessness, violence, and fear; consider Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, Haiti . . . we could stretch the litany.

How much can we take! Well, experience, history, our very make-up tells us we can take a lot, if we believe this darkness will dissipate, if we are convinced that this evil, hate and suffering does not have the last word.

On Good Friday, at the time of day it should have been brightest, “darkness covered the earth.”

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Only three months ago, at Christmas, we rejoiced as the same Bible reports that at midnight, the blackest hour, “the people who walked in darkness saw a great light,” as the angels announced the birth of the Prince of
Peace, the one who would, 30 years later, call Himself, the “light of the world.”

When we hear of grief, when we curse the darkness, we often exclaim, “Dear God! How long is this going to go on?” We spontaneously turn to the Lord. Even Jesus on the cross uttered, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

It’s as if we realize that a broken, fractured, wounded world is beyond our fixing. We need saving! We need God!

How long will the darkness last?

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For us this weekend, it goes on for three days – remember, the number three in the Bible means, “a lot, a long time.” But, and here’s the light, the promise, the reason we have to go on, then comes Easter!

At last night’s Easter Vigil, we processed through a darkened Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, carrying the Paschal Candle, symbolizing the new light and joy of Easter. In a few weeks, our Jewish brothers and sisters will recall the pillar of light which helped guide them from slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land.

Those powers who were giggling and tap dancing Good Friday afternoon – sin, Satan, evil, hate, death – are on the run! Jesus is risen!

And He shares His triumph with who us who believe! God has the last word, the last laugh.

Dear Stephanie, beloved little Ryan, beloved cops: from deep down come sobs that make us tremble, questions about why? What if? We’re with you beneath the cross. It’s Good Friday afternoon.

Yet, also from way far within we sense a kind of hope, a flicker of light, a guarantee that God’s love and the fragile life He gave all of us will endure for all eternity, that this drama we call life is, in the end, not a tragedy, but a comedy which ends happily ever after.

That’s Easter! A blessed one to all!

Timothy Cardinal Dolan is the archbishop of New York.

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