Easter

During the days of the Triduum and the season of Easter 2020, churches throughout the world were closed. Shut. Empty. The RCIA Elect and Candidates were compelled to wait even longer for their Baptism and full initiation into Christ. They had already longed to join us in receiving the Eucharist. They were almost there… almost ready… and the doors closed. Tight. For a long time.

I was ready to rejoice that this year in our country and in our world, churches would open wide their doors, even if we, a Eucharistic People, were distanced but could gather! Yet each night in the two weeks up to Easter I watched the news. Major countries in Europe were into their third wave of the pandemic and their churches, mosques and synagogues were shut down once again.

The paschal mystery, the center of our Eucharistic faith, is about the dying and rising of Jesus. I have mistakenly thought of that as a linear process: Jesus dies. Jesus is risen. But with this pandemic, it is still so uncertain. We have died to so much, especially the absence of the Eucharist. We are ready to rise again from ashes and variant viruses to a new way of Easter life! But we are in the not-yet-fullness of the Resurrection. It is a place of hope, not of fulfillment. It is a place of trust, not of assurance. It is a place of knowing that Jesus is risen. Jesus never dies again. Jesus and the Eucharist transcend churches being open or closed. We are the Risen Body of Christ. We are Jesus-with-skin-on wherever we are, wherever we go!

Last year, the people of Italy went to their balconies at a given evening hour and sang songs together. The people of New York opened their windows each evening to cheer on the exhausted medical workers. Whether you live in a part of our country or world where you can attend Mass during this Easter season or not, let us “meet in prayer” each evening on our balconies or doorways to sing Alleluia for these fifty days during this second most extraordinary Easter season.