Again & Anew, Alleluia!
Holy Week happened, the Paschal Triduum swept us up, and we can say it now and again and again – Alleluia!
On Palm Sunday, we processed in from the early spring chill, through the cloister, and into Church. The incense was swirling, our cedar, pussywillow, and forsythia branches were swaying, and everyone was singing,
“All glory, laud, and honor
to you, Redeemer, King,
to whom the lips of children
made sweet hosannas ring.”
And it was so wonderful – We had the blessed company of actual children!
And that was just the beginning. Our Guest Chapel remained full all week. One woman was visiting from faraway Cameroon. A young married couple made their an annual monastic retreat. And a large family gathered at the Stone House, as they have for years upon years, to pray and play and be present to Jesus. His hour had finally come.
Holy Thursday was drenched in forgiveness.
Good Friday was hard, but good.
Holy Saturday was… Well, for the most part, it’s usually a beautiful day – and oddly normal. We work and pray and live together. But there’s a subtle, almost sickening emptiness. Underneath it all, we know that yesterday Christ died. We know that our sin crucified him. And while we know that tomorrow we’ll celebrate his triumph over all of it, it’s not tomorrow yet. It’s Holy Saturday, and the Tabernacle is empty, and it’s the one day each year when he seems utterly out of reach. It’s a stark experience of “What if?” What if it had ended there? What if we’d killed him, and that was it?
But it wasn’t.
Love is stronger than death.
Early the next morning, we needed to get as close as we could. So, in solidarity with so many who seek the sacraments, or with those who are awake in the darkness just yearning for something – Someone – they can’t seem to find, we loaded up and traveled to New Melleray Abbey.
For three years now, we’ve participated in the Paschal Vigil there with our brothers. Every year, it’s the same fumbling, precious people and the same long, awesome liturgy, but it’s always new too. Every time it’s knock-your-socks-off new. The flint-born fire, the Red Sea crossing, the Lent-silenced bells suddenly peeling-out gloriously, the birds’ dawn chorus chirping up exactly at the moment of Eucharistic consecration… Resurrection happens. We come to life again, there’s light again, we’re unalone again. Something new, something impossible, is possible again.
As one sister said, Easter is the announcement. It’s the announcement of announcements: Christ is Risen! And so too will we be. Foibly, squabbly, unholy us – Because he loves us so much, he’ll raise us up, too. He will make – He is making – all things new.
Alleluia!
