Easter Is Forever
Lynne Therese Elwinger, O.C.D.
This is the lovely time the Church calls the Easter season; a season leading to the celebration of Pentecost, before returning us to so-called “ordinary” time. Recently one of our priests remarked that the Easter season is one of the most underappreciated liturgical seasons in the church. We hear people, and even sometimes ourselves, saying, “Now that Easter is over, (fill in the blank).” When I hear that, something inside of me wants to say,” Easter is never over”! Once released, Easter can never be put back into the box! It will unfold within and around us forever.
I have had a quote from Evelyn Underhill on my mirror for years now, and it still expresses my approach to our lives as Easter people.
I expect resurrection from every death.
However little, however frequent.
This has really been my experience in life. All of us have had experiences that could be called death experiences as we go through life. There are losses of loved ones, jobs, relationships, our own health, our sense of purpose, to name a few examples. Or there are the seeming deaths of long-held dreams and aspirations, and disappointments when things turn out to be not what they seemed. If we stay with these and work with them however, there is always a resurrection on the other side waiting to be discovered. Often getting there takes our letting go of our own trying to make things go the way we want. When we finally let go, and let God take over, everything changes.
No matter how much I know that this is how it works, there is always that time going through it when things look hopeless. I guess that is what I would call the Holy Saturday feeling. Then just when we have about given up all hope, resurrection light suddenly breaks through the darkness, often in totally unexpected ways, changing our view completely. Hope is reborn, grace abounds and we find joy in the promise of new life. These moments tell us that Easter is not merely a day of celebration or a long-ago historical event, but an energy of love and light that travels with us though our entire lives. Resurrection seems to be a time-release phenomenon that, through the power of the Holy Spirit, never leaves us unaccompanied on our life’s journey. We find that our lives are embraced by a Love greater than we can possibly imagine.
Work of The Holy Spirit
No matter how any given day or any given experience we are going through may appear to us, there is more to the picture. To see that, we may have to allow some of our particular views of life to be dissolved and reassembled in new ways, and to watch some of our cherished notions go out the window. Through Christ’s resurrection and the work of the Holy Spirit within us, we are given the freedom to be forever new. Destined for glory, with our souls grounded in God, we may find that resurrection comes most often in our lives through our unchosen experiences. We can then take comfort that God’s Love is upholding us no matter what else is happening. Through Grace, God gets us over the bumps all along the way, and in the end brings us home to the place prepared for us from the beginning. This is the Good News of the Easter season that lasts forever!
Sr. Lynne Thérèse Elwinger of the Resurrection O.C.D.