We have come through a Holy Week and Easter Triduum unlike any other, and have arrived at Easter Monday … intact, even if perhaps a bit off-kilter.
Easter for us has always been a time of entering into the celebration of faith and into the celebration of family. Helen and I are usually very busy during Holy Week, culminating in our participation at the Easter Vigil. We then spend Easter Sunday visiting family. One of our children hosts the Easter “FamJam”, and their house becomes alive with children playing, egg hunts, wind-up-chicken races, and of course, food. And since we have birthdays that fall in March and April – we celebrate those too!
This year was strangely quiet. Sunday morning Mass streamed from the parish while a sadness ebbed in and out of my heart that I wasn’t able to be there to help celebrate. No gatherings of the family clan. No sitting back and watching our children interact and our grandchildren play. Just a series of video chats, beginning at 7am when our 3 year old granddaughter asked Alexa to call us to say “Happy Easter” and show us what the Easter bunny had left for her. It was a Good Easter. We were all healthy, and coping with the challenges of quarantine and isolation. Yet, it brought into sharp focus how very much we missed being with each other. And caused us to wonder what will happen in the future.
Which makes this Easter Monday for me a time of quiet reflection. I have learned (and am still learning) to listen to the movements of the spirit, and for now it seems to tell me to just be still, be silent, be aware.
The first psalm in the Morning Prayer for Easter Monday is Psalm 63. It begins ..
O God, you are my God, for you I long; for you my soul is thirsting. My body pines for you like a dry, weary land without water. So I gaze on you in the sanctuary to see your strength and your glory.
For me on this Easter Monday, that verse will be with me as I am still, as I am silent, as I am aware.