Our Lady of Lourdes Church and School

Without any doubt, Easter is my most favorite of all Church feasts, holidays, whatever you want to call it. I find myself, year after year, caught up in the whole excitement of it all. It is the telling of the core truth of our faith. God created the world for goodness. Sin entered into the world. Everything became a little crazy. Jesus intervened in history and re-ordered the craziness. All is good. Grace abounds. The craziness is not banished from the world, but our destiny in Christ has been revealed to us and we are journeying toward life in god because of the saving passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. We are a people who have been saved by Christ from all that would have us be lesser men and women, and we are invited into a life of wholeness and fullness. What an awesome truth! What a wonderful reality! It is the core truth of our faith.

We tell this truth in word, in song and in ritual every Easter. The Vigil celebration begins outside, in enveloping darkness. We stand in the light of the Easter Fire, reminded of forces potent and natural in our world, the same forces that shaped the universe. Then there is light-sharing, candles aflame with holy fire-light, and movement and journey, and incense to remind us of the awesome holiness of God at work in our world.

Then we sing the story of our salvation in Christ (Exultet). It is a sung narrative that is filled with language that speaks of heaven and earth being bound together… Adam… dry-shod through the Sea.. defeat of darkness… victorious from the underworld… heaven wedded to earth… the Morning Star that never sets… triumph over the grave.

Then we tell the story all over again, as though we can’t get enough of it, but this time using the language and stories of the ancients, our forebears in the faith. The rich imagery and weaving of language that goes into the proclaiming and hearing of sacred scripture is exquisite. Natural imagery and profound realities of the human-divine relationship are expressed using language that is, at once, both alien and familiar to us in our age.

And after we have sung of salvation, and then listened to the narrative of salvation proclaimed, once again we enter into ritual, celebrating baptism, confirmation and eucharist. A watery tomb is the door to new life for those being baptized, and we watch the old life pass and the new life new-born, and we remind ourselves of our life in Christ at Baptism as we sign ourselves with the waters of baptism. The oily anointing of heads in Confirmation signifies our election by God himself for the life he promises to us. Bread and wine are prayed over that God might make of them for us something wonderfully sustaining and life-giving.

This experience of being steeped in multiple ways in the grand narrative of our salvation story can be intoxicating. The vast sweep of God’s saving work in human history, a work which is a labor of unparalleled and tremendous love, begins in ancient times and continues throughout history into our own lives, into our own time. It is a work that calls me, every time I pause to reflect on it, into a heart filled with nothing but gratitude. To know that Jesus has lived and died and has been raised from the dead in order that I might enjoy the fullness of life in God is a gift from God that has no equal. This isn’t just “good” news… it’s great news! It’s news worthy of more than a few full-throated Alleluias.