Dear Friends,
We have entered into the great season of Easter. To make sure you understand how central the resurrection is to the Christian faith, the Church will celebrate Easter for 50 days.
A friend of mine was telling me that she was trying to explain this to her young daughter. She told her daughter that Easter lasts for fifty days. Her daughter was shocked and shouted back, “Easter lasts for fifty days?” Her mother gently explained, “Yes. We fast for forty days and feast for fifty.” Her daughter quickly concluded, “That means I can eat all the candy I want for fifty days, right?” Mom, said, “Um, no. Not at all.” And her daughter correctly observed, “It’s not much of a feast if everything just goes back to normal.”
Every year, Lent is a challenge. Winter was especially long and hard this year. Everywhere we were surrounded by dead and dormant things. During Lent, we wait and we work. We deny ourselves, do our duty, and surrender our desires. Every year it seems like it will last forever. It is with wonder that our human spirits are refreshed by spring. Spring revives us as Lent fades, and during this time we awaken to new life in the world. The Church’s liturgical cycle expresses the truth of the rhythm of our lives that mirrors the universal story of transformation: winter into spring, fasting into feasting, death into life, drudgery into reward, repentance into restoration, and back again.
After forty days of fasting, the feasting has come. He is risen. How are you going to celebrate these fifty days? Easter is not just a hunt for eggs one Sunday morning. It is not simply dressing up in our best clothes and attending a crowded Mass. “It’s not much of a feast if everything just goes back to normal.” Just like in Lent where we made decisions about what we would do differently to make us better and healthier disciples, so now the question becomes what are we going to do to celebrate the truth that in Jesus’ rising from the dead we are all invited to a life beyond this life?
The readings during the Easter season offer us stories of the early church and how the disciples celebrated the experience of Jesus’ resurrection. I invite you to learn from them. See how they celebrate Easter. As you hear the readings during the week and on Sundays, see if you can feast as they did:
They look at the world differently – seeing Jesus alive – everywhere.
They are filled with joy not sadness because they have nothing to fear.
They share their truth and their joy with others.
Little miracles happen wherever they go because Jesus accompanies them.
They see beyond present realities and so can bear the daily burdens.
They trust that God will roll away the stones that get in the way.
They regularly gather with their friends because a party of one is not a party at all.
A grandmother told me about a conversation that took place between her three-year-old granddaughter and her daughter-in-law at the 9:00 Mass on Easter at Cabrini. The three-year-old kept looking at the big cross on the north wall at Cabrini and seemed quite pensive. Finally, she stated to her mother, “He died.” Her mother said, “Yes.” The three-year-old continued to stare at the cross and said with firm resolve, “but he rises today.” If a three-year-old can proclaim the good news, so can you.
Peace,
Fr. Damian