Easter Joy!

9 April 2007: Monday of the Easter Octave
Matthew 28, 8-15 Easter Joy!

Each church year, we celebrate the jubilant season of Easter with a loud and joyful shout, Alleluia! The Lord is risen! And often I wonder how many of us sense that deep jubilant joy that marks the season? How many of us find it difficult to really proclaim it, with one’s full heart and soul?

From our heads, we know that this is the time of joy, but there are more reasons why we find ourselves forcing a smile. There are those even who would find real rejoicing as not to their liking. A friend relates to me an experience she had with her mother at church. She was participating in the singing and she was enjoying the mass, when her mother remarked, “Are we supposed to enjoy the mass? We’re supposed to be serious.”

Whenever we experience some kind of happiness, our happiness is suddenly spoiled by certain illnesses, bodily changes, tragedy, fear or anxiety. They spoil the fun! Some of us even find joyful moments as omens of future sorrow. Thus, preventing us from fully shouting our Alleluias!

But our Easters are more than a feeling moment. Our Easter is a faith moment. It is a time when we bring to others a significant fact of our belief: that being Christian is about joy and hope and peace and delight to a new life. For example, when one receives a letter from a friend, a child graduating from college, we experience these little Easters in our lives. It is a time when God gives life to dead parts of our lives.

So today we ask: what significant aspects of your life seem lifeless, dead and entombed? Ask the Lord to open your tombs and bring these dead parts to life.