A reflection by Sr Madeleine fcJ, who is part of the team at the Ignatius Jesuit Centre in Guelph, Ontario. First published in Adelante Junt@s, the newsletter of the FCJ Area of the Americas.
What difference could it make to our lives if Easter were a verb, instead of a noun or an adjective? As a noun, and a proper noun at that, Easter can refer to one day, one moment in history, one shift in human consciousness. As an adjective, Easter can refer to a color palette, a fashion style, a description of activities associated with a particular moment in the year, even an entire liturgical season. But a verb?
To Easter. Think about that for a moment. What might it mean?
To Easter is to believe actively—that is, to believe in ways that change how I act–that death is not the end of created existence, that humans and all living things enter what Teilhard de Chardin called “The Omega Point”, a state of union with the uncreated, continuing to contribute to what is ultimate and real, but through mystery, not history. I Easter when I claim through my words and my actions that there is more to the story that when we can see so far. I listen to the news and I see what’s occurring on the world stage politically and economically and educationally and socially and culturally and ecologically, and I Easter: I search for what’s not being reported: the good, the true, the beautiful and unifying—the common good—all the people and the creatures and the systems and the programs that are pushing back against death, refusing to be dominated by a feeling that the end is near and it is bad.
To Easter is to choose, even in the face of death and darkness, the power of resurrection, that is, the energy and will to keep looking for, keep reaching out for, keep expressing gratitude for all that is good and beautiful and true and unifying… I Easter when I watch You Tube videos of beavers returning to watersheds, who, just by living the life of a beaver, create a multiplicity of habitats that make it possible for so many other beings to live: cooler, still water behind their dams for fish that need colder temperatures and birds that live near calm, restful waters; rushing waters below their dams for the fish that need highly oxygenated water for life; shallow ponds of warm water for tadpoles and other amphibians… marshy ground for sedges and cattails and wild iris…
To Easter is to keep myself open to the possibility of learning new information and skills and attitudes about how to turn away from selfish convenience, desire for luxury and comfort, taking for granted the affordances of life in North America. I move through a world of safety, of variety, of efficiency, of freedom, having what I want when I want it, and I recognize my need to cultivate solidarity with the billions of people who do not have my comfortable lifestyle, the “norming” of expectation with respect to annual vacations in exotic places, strawberries all year round, multiple pairs of shoes for specialized purposes, a whole wardrobe of coats for different weather conditions.
To Easter is to live ecological conversion…
Photos from Adobe Stock.
