Vine & Fig

At the beginning of Lent several weeks ago, when I knew I’d be writing the reflection for Easter Sunday, I had much different ideas than I do now about the frame of mind I’d be in and the insights I may try and convey about the Gospel for today. I assumed, like many of you probably did, that I’d be anticipating with great joy the coming of Easter, that each week, I’d enter more deeply into the mysteries of our faith, and that I’d be able to lay my shortcomings and sins down in front of that cross at the Good Friday liturgy and respond to the Archbishop as he says: “Behold the wood of the Cross, on which hung the salvation of the world.” Oh, come let us adore. 

But we don’t have that this year, and that is to be lamented. We don’t get to sit in our churches with gladness in our hearts on Easter Sunday, we don’t get to have those good, Lenten cries, clutching a rosary as we sit in our pews and feel a solidarity, once more, with the holy and human suffering of Jesus Christ or of the Blessed Mother. The families of those who are dying from all walks of life and faith cannot hold funerals in the ways that feel right and holy, and that too is to be lamented. Our eyes and minds are sore from reading and re-reading the words “coronavirus,” “pandemic,” and “death.” Many of us are isolated, feeling the weight of loneliness and grief all alone, and as we’ve heard in places like New York and Italy, some are dying alone, the sound of their last breaths known only to God. 

With all of this going on in the world, and something that weeks ago felt so far away being suddenly so near, in our own backyards and touching our lives and the lives of those we love, it’s easy to be distracted. It would be all too simple to slip into a mindset of “ahh, let’s just skip Easter. It’s just not the same this year.” And really, it’s not the same. There is something that feels a bit cruel about the one thing so many of us need now, in the midst of global chaos, having to close its doors to the public so that the chances of all parishioners returning some Sunday in the future are greatest. None of it makes sense and I’m with you in that confusion, but I’m also here to tell you this: God is on the move, and Scripture still holds timeless truths for us to glean, still sheds abundant light even when it all feels immeasurably dark.

Around Easter, we focus a lot on the extraordinary nature of the Passion and Resurrection. It is truly extraordinary, but I think that in this global moment, focusing on the ordinary, in fact, seeking the ordinary, may allow us to more fully come into the Gospel and imagine that even now, in the year 2020, there is something to relate to, something that God is speaking into our confused and weary hearts. The ordinary speaks to us and says “yes, even you too, can be a part of something miraculous.” Year after year, I am struck by the ordinary, beautiful trust of the disciples and those closest to Christ. Oh yes, what they believed in, who they believed in was extraordinary beyond comparison, but on that first Easter Sunday, Mary Magdalene did what any grieving human being might do. She went to the tomb, distraught with the pain of grief, missing her dear friend, and then she bore witness. Mary was, by most accounts, the first witness to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. I do not think it was by accident that this was the case. She was a woman who likely stood at the corners of society because of her past, and that makes her ordinary. I don’t mean unremarkable; I mean, just like the rest of us, she had skeletons in her closet and had done things she wasn’t proud of. She woke up every day and put on her clothes, and made something to eat, and was a friend to Jesus, and was a seeker of truth. In her ordinary act, doing what all of us would do if we found the grave or tomb of a friend empty, she ran back to the disciples, her friends, and breathlessly told them what had happened. She and the disciples were on the front lines of the work Christ began in His time on earth. They entered into the heart of something they believed in, someone they believed in, because they knew it, knew Him as good, and right, and just. They did the work of being disciples and missionaries because they felt a duty, a responsibility for the collective spiritual health of not only all of Israel, but of the world over, following Jesus’ calls to love and care for one another. That witness, that initial confusion and pain mingled with hope for clearer, better days is not something foreign to us now, during this pandemic. There are many among us on the front lines right now, who can’t stay home in isolation because their job necessitates their witness to life and death, up close, every day. They, like the disciples, are entering into the heart of something risky, even dangerous, for something they believe in, because of their own internal obligation to what is right and just. Regular, ordinary people are being made saints in this time, just like regular, ordinary people who by their witness and faith became saints all those years ago while they worked as fishermen in their boats on a small sea called Galilee. We, too, whether at work or at home, are called to be witnesses to this time and place, and each of us have a unique role to play. God is watching how we take care of each other, and how we consider and act upon the question Jesus Christ answered: “Who is my neighbor?” (Lk 10:25-37) 

The simple fact of this Gospel is that Christ is Risen, that death never gets the last word, and that beyond all pain, and suffering, and brokenness of this temporal world, there is an eternal light, and the Source of that light is with us always. This Gospel says that even ordinary, regular people who were labeled “prostitute” or who came from poor, laboring backgrounds, were eligible to be witnesses to something as grand and miraculous as Jesus Christ’s journey on this earth. You, too, are eligible. Moments of lightness or hope tend to be few and far between these days, but remember that for every death and moment of sorrow, a baby has just burst forth into the world with the sweet sound of its first cry; someone just delivered a plate of hot food to elderly neighbor’s porch, and somewhere, people who love each other very much are falling in love all over again at their dining room table.

Remember that this glorious Resurrection is still happening, public Mass or no public Mass. Jesus Christ and His sacrifices defy time and space, and the graces wrapped up in the cross are still yours to grab onto.

We adore You, O Christ, and we praise You. Because, by Your holy cross, You have redeemed the world. 

May your Easter be one of peace, abundant blessings, and a few well-earned deep breaths.