Easter Week

This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it! Each day of this octave (the week following) Easter we sing or say, "This is the day that the Lord has made!" We celebrate Christ's rising from the dead every day this week. In his book "From Resurrection to Pentecost" Bishop Robert Morneau quotes Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem "God's Grandeur". Despite news reports of bad things that happen around the world, we need to remember the good things that happen daily. We Christians have hope precisely because Christ overcame the finality of death. He is alive, and because he rose from the dead, we aim to be with him one day. When we close our eyes to this world, we want to open them to see the Risen Christ. The Risen Christ walked with the two Disciples of Emmaus. He explained the Scriptued and prophesies about him. Do we recognize when Christ walks with us during our day? In this life, we often experience slivers of his cross in our own sufferings. He told us that "unless a grain of wheat fall into the earth and dies, it remains only a grain of wheat. But, if it dies, it produces grain...". The Church Fathers compare Christ himself to the grain of wheat which died and was put into the earth, into a tomb. He sprang forth alive and transformed on Easter morning. Hopkins saw God at work in the beauty of creation. Enjoy his poem and see the Easter message in it:

God's Grandeur The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man's smudge, and shares man's smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward springs-- Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and ah! bright wings.

As the poet saw the grandeur of God in creation, may we who are made in the image of God, be witnesses to the great Good News of the Resurrection. Have a blessed day and a blessed Week of the Resurrection! He promised to be with us not just at the end of our life, but through every minute. There is a simple prayer we Sisters say now and then to remind us that the Resurrected Jesus is among us: One prays: Jesus is with us. The other responds: We are with Jesus. Make sure to be truly him!