And yet, as soon as I had that thought, I remembered my eleven-year-old daughter. It is very much on her mind this year how much different Easter will be. She has spoken many times this week about the things she will miss, the usual traditions that make Easter special. But she also has been thinking about how to make this Easter meaningful too. She has picked out special dresses, one for the Easter Vigil and one for Easter Sunday. When I told her we were watching our Cathedral's livestream for the Easter Vigil, she asked if we could light candles. She wants to help decorate our front door with greenery for Palm Sunday. In short, she is present.
So many times I think that traditions and meaning are the responsibility of the parents, that we drive our children's activities and they just follow along the path we lay out for them. And it blows me away when one of them shows an interest on their own, or somehow demonstrates that faith has value to them. To see my daughter thinking so thoughtfully of how to live the Easter liturgies in our home is so ministering to me, because it helps to position me in front of this moment as well.
Next Easter will be amazing. But there is so much that is given to us this year as well. This year will be more quiet, reflective, distanced. But in a strange way, that can help it to be contemplative, monastic, prayerful, personal.
I spent some time in our church parking lot yesterday for First Friday. As I looked at the stained glass windows from my seat on the lawn, it felt distant and cold. Last week I had been able to enter the church, but new directives from the diocese had asked for churches to be closed for private prayer. As I contemplated what this means for me, trying to conjure up feelings of closeness to the Lord in the midst of this, I studied the windows. From inside the church, you can see every detail in them, and they are beautiful. But from the outside, you have to look a little closer. It's not so evident, no detail, just shapes.
But the more I looked at those shapes, the more my mind filled in the blanks, and they began to look and feel familiar to me. And the more I did that, the more I realized that whether I was inside looking at the tabernacle or outside on the lawn trying to fill in the blanks, He is still there. He is always there.
We are very much in a season of filling in the blanks. But Jesus is not absent. He may not be coming to us in the ways we are used to, but He never leaves us. What He is asking of all of us, is to take that time to contemplate Him, and look a little harder. The more we do that, the more we will find Him in a new way, as we navigate this strange season of life.
Like my sweet girl, we can understand that there are still ways to live this season with meaning. We journey like the Israelites towards the promised land, knowing this journey is temporary and that the food we are given may not be exactly what we wanted or are used to (and may even seem flat and stale at times). But we will not stay here. The journey will end, and we will reach that blessed promised land, where there will be much rejoicing.
Next Easter is going to be amazing. But I think this one will be too.
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