Here in New York City the sky is dark and the wind howls as the rain pounds down on the convent. It is Easter Monday – hasn’t anyone told the sun and sky that this is the season of light? I may not be the only one noticing that it doesn’t feel like Easter. As the crisis unfolded day after day within the season of penance and sacrifice, it felt like God gently took our little Lenten observances out of our hands and replaced them with another version of Lent. There would be plenty of offerings to make, not just sacrifices of our own choosing – all the better to purify us with, no doubt. We could wake up each day and say to ourselves, “This coronavirus is the Passion” and “We are living the stations of the cross, the whole world together.” But now it is Easter. Jesus is risen and we are celebrating life, but meanwhile, the ambulance sirens whirl ceaselessly behind our Alleluias.
Jesus rose from the dead.
Now is the time to engage our intellectual conviction of the truths we hold. The reality of the Resurrection: Jesus Christ, dead and buried, rose from the dead, exited the tomb, visited his apostles in the upper room and thereby changed everything about everything. The Resurrection is a historical fact that divides history, rends the heavens open, and is the cause of our hope in everlasting life. No matter what I see, hear, feel or experience in this moment, the truth is not dependent upon any aspect of my subjective experience and it is not affected by the rain.
Jesus lives. He is with us. He is leading us. May we look upon the Passion that still surrounds us, and perhaps engulfs us, through the light of the Resurrection: the eternal light that sharpens perspective through the lens of eternity.
Mother Clare, CFR