In the past, my life as a liturgist, musician and cleric was so busy with rituals and Masses of Holy Week, that by the time I got to the last “Happy Easter” exchange following the last Mass of Easter Sunday, the two things that I felt were: 1) exhaustion, and, 2) a need to sip that Brandy Manhattan my dad would have prepared for me beforehand.
This is my second Easter without all the busyness of Holy Week. As Ruthie and I prayed our liturgy at home yesterday (Easter Sunday), I reflected with her that I still feel exhausted. The exhaustion is not from the frantic pace of Holy Week, far from it. Rather, the exhaustion of all the events of the past year because of the pandemic, the number of people I know who were alive last Easter and now lie in a grave this Easter is emotionally and spiritually exhausting. I wondered out loud with my bride yesterday is whether the exhaustion I am feeling this year similar to that of many citizens of our nation during those Easter covering the years of World War II, when families lived on pins and needles as their husbands, sons, brothers, cousins, and friends fought fierce battles in Europe and the Pacific. Did they experience the grand joy of Jesus’ Resurrection with so much death and destruction afflicting many of the families of our nation?
Am I the only one feeling this way, or are there so many others experiencing this same feeling this Easter?
During the first year of my retirement, tired of all the sexist language and prayers of the Liturgy of the Hours (formerly called The Divine Office), I reconstructed and composed my own Liturgy of Hours from Biblical and prayer sources using more inclusive language. The opening “hymn” I chose for Easter Sunday morning was a poem from Madeleine L’Engle’s collection of poems, The Ordering of Love. I found that this poem, “Pieta”, accurately reflects how I am feeling during this Octave of Easter.
PIETA
The other Marys radiated joy.
The disciples found the truth hard to believe. There had to be breaking bread, eating fish, before they, too, even Thomas, were lit with joyfulness. Not much was said about me.
I said good-bye to the son I carried within me for nine months, nursed, fed, taught to walk.
On Friday when they took him down from the cross, I held the son I knew,
recognizing him in my arms, and never saw him again,
not my body’s child. How could I laugh, weep tears of joy?
Like the others, I failed to recognize him;
the Christ who rose was not Bethlehem’s babe… And it was right. For this was meant to be.
Here in my head I would not have had it otherwise. But empty arms still longed for familiar flesh.
My joy, a sword that pierced through my heart. I understood, more, perhaps, than the others when he said that he could not stay with us— that it was better if he went away,
was one again with God, his Father. And when the Spirit came
I once again could love my son
and know my Lord. If Easter came later for me than for the others,
its brilliance was as poignant and bright.
As I prayed this poem yesterday morning, I marveled at how accurate it expressed what I am feeling this Easter. I also reflected back on the song I composed last year at this time, bearing the same name as the poem, though, as I composed the music, I was thinking more of the bittersweet feelings my mother had when my sister, Mary Ruth, died in 1997. Mom’s faith in the Resurrection sustained her when my sister died. However, the sorrow, the loss of a mother for her dead child could not be denied. Here is that song.
So, this is a bittersweet Easter for me, and I believe, so many others. Like my mother, my faith in the Resurrection sustains me, yet, I continue to mourn the losses of the past year.
I wish those who similarly feel this way, peace, and pray that the last sentence of the poem, “If Easter came later for me than for the others, its brilliance was as poignant and bright.” is true for you.
