An Easter Sunday Thought to Start Easter Week Off Right
Happy Easter!
Is there any more glorious greeting? We should say it often and with great joy and enthusiasm not only this day but throughout Easter Week. Every day of the coming week is a first class feast day, held on a par with Easter Sunday. In the old calendar, next Sunday was called "Low Sunday" simply to emphasize the importance of each of the seven days of Easter Week. In the new calendar, we observe Divine Mercy Sunday, a feast recently instituted by Pope St John Paul II.
However you observe Easter Sunday, please resolve to keep this week special at least in your mind and heart. Most of us will, of course, return to work Monday. Unlike in Europe where, despite their thoroughly secularized culture, Easter Monday remains in many places a holiday, we Americans return to "business as usual." But we Catholic Americans know, of course, that it's really not business as usual. Having kept (at least in some degree I hope) our Lenten discipline these past six weeks, having especially focused our attention on the great mystery of Christ's suffering, death and Resurrection this past week, our prayer and meditation has prepared us to celebrate this greatest of all feasts of the Church's liturgical calendar - Easter Sunday and the six following days of the coming week. By God's grace, we have grown closer to Him as a result of our prayer, penance and charitable acts during Lent, with our Lenten discipline strengthening our souls just as vigorous physical exercise strengthens our bodies.
And so we wake up this Easter Sunday invigorated, rejoicing in our recognition of the salvation brought to us by Our Blessed Lord, He who suffered and died that we might live, He who rose from the dead to show us, once and for all, that, indeed, we shall have not only life today, but eternal life with Him in glory someday. Can anything be more wonderful!
And on this greatest of all days, bathed anew in the wonder of the Resurrection and hopeful of our own salvation, we hear for the first time since the inception of those long weeks of Lent, the great exhortation "Alleluia!" return to our sacred liturgies. We revel in the sound of it, its absence during these penitential having made our hearts fonder for the hearing of it. And what could be more glorious than the great musical expression of "Alleluia" we find in Handel's oratorio, Messiah. Yes, we typically hear this at Christmas, the season when Messiah is most performed. But, of course, the "Halleluiah Chorus" occurs at that point in the Oratorio's narration of the glorious Resurrection of Our Lord.
Here now a performance by Sir Colin Davis, leading the London Symphony Orchestra and the Tenebrae Chorus. Years ago I bought an album (yes, album!) set of Maestro Davis' Messiah and God only knows how many times I listened to it. It was and remains one of my favorite works of musical art. This performance took place more recently in 2006. It retains all the vigor and inspiration of the Maestro's younger days.
Please take a few moments to soak up this great expression of the glory of Our Lord's Resurrection. And try to keep Easter Week special in your own way.
Is there any more glorious greeting? We should say it often and with great joy and enthusiasm not only this day but throughout Easter Week. Every day of the coming week is a first class feast day, held on a par with Easter Sunday. In the old calendar, next Sunday was called "Low Sunday" simply to emphasize the importance of each of the seven days of Easter Week. In the new calendar, we observe Divine Mercy Sunday, a feast recently instituted by Pope St John Paul II.
However you observe Easter Sunday, please resolve to keep this week special at least in your mind and heart. Most of us will, of course, return to work Monday. Unlike in Europe where, despite their thoroughly secularized culture, Easter Monday remains in many places a holiday, we Americans return to "business as usual." But we Catholic Americans know, of course, that it's really not business as usual. Having kept (at least in some degree I hope) our Lenten discipline these past six weeks, having especially focused our attention on the great mystery of Christ's suffering, death and Resurrection this past week, our prayer and meditation has prepared us to celebrate this greatest of all feasts of the Church's liturgical calendar - Easter Sunday and the six following days of the coming week. By God's grace, we have grown closer to Him as a result of our prayer, penance and charitable acts during Lent, with our Lenten discipline strengthening our souls just as vigorous physical exercise strengthens our bodies.
And so we wake up this Easter Sunday invigorated, rejoicing in our recognition of the salvation brought to us by Our Blessed Lord, He who suffered and died that we might live, He who rose from the dead to show us, once and for all, that, indeed, we shall have not only life today, but eternal life with Him in glory someday. Can anything be more wonderful!
And on this greatest of all days, bathed anew in the wonder of the Resurrection and hopeful of our own salvation, we hear for the first time since the inception of those long weeks of Lent, the great exhortation "Alleluia!" return to our sacred liturgies. We revel in the sound of it, its absence during these penitential having made our hearts fonder for the hearing of it. And what could be more glorious than the great musical expression of "Alleluia" we find in Handel's oratorio, Messiah. Yes, we typically hear this at Christmas, the season when Messiah is most performed. But, of course, the "Halleluiah Chorus" occurs at that point in the Oratorio's narration of the glorious Resurrection of Our Lord.
Here now a performance by Sir Colin Davis, leading the London Symphony Orchestra and the Tenebrae Chorus. Years ago I bought an album (yes, album!) set of Maestro Davis' Messiah and God only knows how many times I listened to it. It was and remains one of my favorite works of musical art. This performance took place more recently in 2006. It retains all the vigor and inspiration of the Maestro's younger days.
Please take a few moments to soak up this great expression of the glory of Our Lord's Resurrection. And try to keep Easter Week special in your own way.
Happy Easter!
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