My latest column for the Global Sister Report is a reflection on the beginning of our second Easter season in the COVID-19 pandemic. There are a lot of emotions as we move through this transformative moment- feelings not too foreign to the disciples after the Resurrection. Wishing you all Easter blessings these days and praying that hope may emerge as we move forward!
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Easter Sunday, I pulled into the parking lot of a local parish, hopeful that I would be able to join the congregation to celebrate the joy of Easter morning. Turning into the lot, I was met by a sight that was both eerily familiar and yet utterly out of place: a parking lot filled with cars.
Not since before the pandemic started had I seen the lot so
full. My heart sank. The sparsely filled lot that had greeted me each week
throughout Lent had seemly been restored to its former glory in little more
than a week's time. With only a few empty parking spots remaining, I knew that
I would not be joining the crowd inside to celebrate.
I had feared as much the week before, when sisters I live
with reported back about the size of the congregation at the vigil Mass they'd
attended for Palm Sunday. Hearing about people lining the walls of the church,
I'd told myself that people love palms and, hopefully, Easter might prompt
lighter attendance.
As an unvaccinated individual, I thought it was probably
best to watch Palm Sunday Mass from home, while holding out hope that the
Easter Triduum would offer the opportunity to once again join the community in
person. Holy Thursday and Good Friday, I did just that, joining church communities
in-person to commemorate these most sacred nights.
As we moved through the days, hope was enkindled in me.
After watching the Easter Vigil online Saturday night with my local community,
a sneaking sense of joy began to rise within me — and I held out hope for the
promise of Sunday morning.
Looking at the cars in the parking lot Easter morning,
though, my hopes were dashed. I was happy that so many people had come to
celebrate the Resurrection. I could imagine the singing within the church, the
sweet smell of flowers filling the air. I also knew I would not be able to join
them out of fear of being too close during this precarious time. I felt sorry
for a moment: a twinge of sorrow within me as hope ebbed again in the long year
of pandemic.
Returning home, I set my computer up to watch the liturgy
online. I wish I could say that I had a transcendent moment of joy in front of
that screen or that the joy I had imagined was complete and as sweet as I'd so
desired it to be, but that didn't happen. I celebrated in a quiet room, singing
the alleluia by myself. Fidgeting in my seat, I made myself focus on the
screen, pushing through the feelings of disappointment I was holding. All I
really wanted to do was move on and get involved in anything other than what I
was feeling.
As much as I wanted to avoid my feelings of that moment, my
prayer in the days since has returned me to those feelings time and again.
There in that quiet room, there was uncomfortable hope and disappointment, held
in a delicate balance, pregnant with possibility if only I could engage it.
Listening to Easter stories these days, I am struck by the
delicate balance of emotions contained within those days following the
Crucifixion. Fear is coupled with hope. Sorrow walks hand-in-hand with promise.
Disappointment and disbelief pivot within the spirits of those engaged in the
story.
I know my own experience is far from that of the disciples.
I missed being at liturgy; I missed the feeling of jubilation that has become
familiar over the years. Yet, reading the stories of the Resurrection this
Easter, I have been struck by the emotions of the disciples. What is so often
portrayed as a crystal-clear experience of joy, of pure and precise revelation,
is, upon further examination, not nearly as clear as one might hope. Those
familiar feelings I was missing were, in fact, absent in those first days
following Jesus' death.
In a year so fraught with fear, it would be hard not to
recognize the central role that fear plays in the Easter story. The disciples
were afraid. They had watched everything fall apart; they had witnessed their
friend and teacher be beaten and killed; they had hidden away, uncertain that
their own lives were safe, let alone that life would ever be the same again.
Fear is what caused Peter and John to run to the tomb. Fear
that what had already gone wrong could possibly have gotten worse. Jesus had
died, and now, his body was missing. They saw he was gone and believed it to be
true but didn't understand. They left the tomb not consoled but confused, and
with hearts heavier than before.
With the same heavy heart, Mary Magdalen stayed at the tomb
and wept. Distraught and desperate, she pleaded with the gardener for some sort
of answer, some clarity in confusion. The response she receives is surprising
and at the sound of her name, she sees the resurrected Christ before her. There,
in the depths of her despair, new hope was found. This is the message she
brings to the disciples, a hope of new life to imbue their fear and grief with
the promise of potential joy.
In this Easter season, we witness the transformation of
these emotions in the disciples. Fear does not vanish, but it is changed. In
time, the heavy hearts of the disciples become lighter with hope. Fear becomes
courage, and rather than hiding, they go forth in faith.
We can hope the same for ourselves in this Easter season.
Hope is on the horizon. With vaccinations on the rise, soon we will be together
again, reunited and rejoicing. Just like the Resurrection and the Easter
experience, the transformation that awaits us will take time. We have seen and
experienced much in the last year to inspire fear, sow doubt, and reveal
injustice, suffering and violence in our world.
Because of these experiences, we know the sting of death and
we can be attentive for the disconcerting signs of resurrection and the flurry
of emotions it brings. New life requires engagement; it makes us run to the
tomb and witness to the grace and grit hidden in its emptiness. In the words of
Justin McRoberts, "Maybe resurrection is most readily available to those
most acquainted with death; who don't need to see the scars in Jesus' hands or
side, but need to see and touch and remember and believe our own."
Easter joy does not erase suffering. In fact, to live into
the Easter season is to embrace fear and sorrow, betrayal and misunderstanding,
suffering and death, and to allow it all to transform our lives in Christ.
Threatened by resurrection, we will and must rise again, making meaning by our
being alive and awake in our world.
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