Let’s be Easter people, always

I spent my Easter in an unusually green mode — and I don’t mean environmentallyconscious. I mean: stomach flu. The worst I’ve ever had.

I’d thought I’d escaped it. My husband became ill on Spy Wednesday. As he languished on the couch recovering ever so slowly, and between trips to the store for saltines and ginger ale, I attended the Triduum services solo. By the end of Easter Vigil, the most joyful Mass we celebrate all year, as the Exultet was still sounding in my heart, “This is the night, O truly blessed night!”, I was certain that indeed the dark desert of Lent was over, my husband was on the mend, and I had somehow evaded contagion.

But by 5 a.m. Easter morning, I felt a violent jolt backward. My Lent, it seems, would be extended, wave after nauseated wave well into the Octave.

Still, as strange as it might sound, it was an exceptionally meaningful Easter, and the stomach flu was almost a gift. I kept thinking about Mary Magdalene on that first early Easter morning, waiting and wondering in the dark, heartbroken and longing for comfort, lost in sorrow and confusion keeping watch at the tomb. And Jesus broke in upon her mourning in such a marvelous way, so unexpected. She thought he was the gardener. But it was Jesus, calling her by name, and she clung to him in wild relief. What an unspeakable moment that must have been.

CATHOLIC WATCHMEN | DEACON GORDON BIRD