Easter 2023

It is hard to imagine that it is Easter already. It seems we just celebrated Ash Wednesday and our parish mission.

But the last month has been difficult for our parish. We have experienced a great deal of sickness. Our parish Leadership has been ill and unable to lead.  

We had to cancel some of the highlights of our Lenten season. We canceled Living Stations and the Emmaus Retreat. We had Communion services instead of morning mass. Our people have been isolated, and many are depressed. It has been 40 days of loss. It has been 40 days of disappointment. It has meant canceled choir practices and parish gatherings. Even the funerals of loved ones were delayed. It has been 40 days in the desert. Those who were well were doing double time to keep the parish and the community going.

One of the insights that came to me this Lent, when I have spent nearly 30 days of it in isolation, is that the desert is a hard place to be. It is a place of disappointment, discouragement, and loneliness. Yet, God is present in it all.

Lent is usually filled with stuff. It is prayer, reconciliation services, stations of the cross, and walking the walk with Jesus. It is an extra effort to spend time with God. Lent is about fasting and abstinence. Very often, those have been communal experiences. They have been opportunities for us to gather and journey through Lent together.

So what is to learn this year when so much is canceled and sickness made personal prayer difficult?

It isn’t complicated. The learning is right here, right now, and right in front of us. 

Easter is experiencing the resurrection when life is hard. It is singing Alleluia loudly and robustly even when raising our eyes to heaven seems impossible.  

Easter came for Jesus after trial and persecution. Easter came after pain, suffering, disappointment, death, and the tomb. But Easter came because Easter is more significant than any disappointment, pain, or despair. Easter is more important than our inadequacy because we couldn’t pray. It is more powerful than our isolation and loneliness because we could not gather and be together. Easter is more significant than any burden.

Easter is, it just is. No matter what. Easter is. Easter is the light at the end of the tunnel. It is the hope for a better day. Easter is knowing that no matter what happens, we are held in the arms of God and raised from what pains us to new life.

Too often, we allow Easter to be limited to the end of the 40 days of Lent. Yet, Easter and our God are so much bigger than that. Easter is every time we come through a period of sadness and doubt, allowing God to lead us from the tomb of limits and loss to new life.

Easter is every day. For some of us, perhaps that is today, and for others, maybe a few weeks from now or a few months. God is not bound by our calendars. Whenever we suffer, we must remember the tomb and rest in the arms of God. In the tomb of our pain, God brings forth resurrection.

Lent has been hard for our parish this year. But Lent has taught us the true meaning of Easter. Whether it is May, June, November, or July, Easter comes. No matter how cloudy and dark the day the sun rises…the Son rises. Alleluia, Alleluia, He has risen in us. Today and every day, He rises in us.

In God’s Unending Love,

Gwen