Bringing the Easter Season to Work
While those special solemn days of the Easter Octave are now behind us, we're still surrounded by the Easter Season. It's important that we make the effort to be aware of our spiritual surroundings. That effort will be well worth it. If you devoted yourself to some special Lenten discipline for 40 days, your spiritual life just got a little boost. This is no time to ease up and sit on your laurels. It's certainly no time to slip back into those old ways of the "old man" - that self-centered guy whose urges and desires we sought to quell and control with our fasting and other mortifications.
We saw last time how our sacrificial prayers, fasting, and almsgiving helped direct our attention away from ourselves, freeing us to become less self-centered, more like Christ. Now the Easter Season provides the appropriate backdrop for the "new man" to manifest himself. The Postcommunion Prayer for Easter Wednesday in the traditional Latin rite expresses this perfectly:
"We beseech You, O Lord, that, being cleansed from the old nature, the solemn reception of Your sacrament may change us into new creatures."
And on Easter Thursday, we find this Communion Prayer:
"O purchased people, proclaim the perfections of Him, alleluia, Who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light, alleluia."
These Easter prayers emphasize how Our Lord's Resurrection was more than an extraordinary event that happened two thousand years ago. The joy it brought to His mother and His disciples continues through the centuries and now touches our own hearts. With that understanding, can you see a difference in how you think, and talk, and act? Will your day at work be just another day, or will it find you pursuing your vocation as a Christian gentleman, a good example to others?
But what if we find that "old man" reasserting himself, with his self-centered habits and attitudes, as we go about our business today? Consider the Postcommunion Prayer for Easter Thursday:
"O Lord, hear our prayers, that the most holy channels of our Redemption may both confer upon us Your help in this life and procure of us everlasting joys."
His help is there for the asking. And we should be asking for it daily, especially during this Easter Season, as we see in the Prayer for Easter Friday:
"O almighty and eternal God, in the Easter sacrament You instituted the covenant, whereby You forgave mankind; grant to our souls, that what we outwardly profess we may show forth in our deeds."
And how, specifically, should our renewed spirit show itself? The Gospel for Easter Friday provides the answer:
"Go forth, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you..." (Matt. 28)
While most of us won't be doing any preaching or baptizing at work today, we all can comport ourselves in such a way that those around us know that we are followers of Jesus Christ. The way we dress and carry ourselves, our language, our interactions with those around us, can - and should - serve as an example to others. For most of us, that example will be how we teach His commandments, how we "make disciples of all nations."
Having risen with the Son of God, new men, we're off to our work today, heads held high, inviting all we meet to share in the joy of this glorious Easter Season!
We saw last time how our sacrificial prayers, fasting, and almsgiving helped direct our attention away from ourselves, freeing us to become less self-centered, more like Christ. Now the Easter Season provides the appropriate backdrop for the "new man" to manifest himself. The Postcommunion Prayer for Easter Wednesday in the traditional Latin rite expresses this perfectly:
"We beseech You, O Lord, that, being cleansed from the old nature, the solemn reception of Your sacrament may change us into new creatures."
And on Easter Thursday, we find this Communion Prayer:
"O purchased people, proclaim the perfections of Him, alleluia, Who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light, alleluia."
These Easter prayers emphasize how Our Lord's Resurrection was more than an extraordinary event that happened two thousand years ago. The joy it brought to His mother and His disciples continues through the centuries and now touches our own hearts. With that understanding, can you see a difference in how you think, and talk, and act? Will your day at work be just another day, or will it find you pursuing your vocation as a Christian gentleman, a good example to others?
But what if we find that "old man" reasserting himself, with his self-centered habits and attitudes, as we go about our business today? Consider the Postcommunion Prayer for Easter Thursday:
"O Lord, hear our prayers, that the most holy channels of our Redemption may both confer upon us Your help in this life and procure of us everlasting joys."
His help is there for the asking. And we should be asking for it daily, especially during this Easter Season, as we see in the Prayer for Easter Friday:
"O almighty and eternal God, in the Easter sacrament You instituted the covenant, whereby You forgave mankind; grant to our souls, that what we outwardly profess we may show forth in our deeds."
And how, specifically, should our renewed spirit show itself? The Gospel for Easter Friday provides the answer:
"Go forth, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you..." (Matt. 28)
While most of us won't be doing any preaching or baptizing at work today, we all can comport ourselves in such a way that those around us know that we are followers of Jesus Christ. The way we dress and carry ourselves, our language, our interactions with those around us, can - and should - serve as an example to others. For most of us, that example will be how we teach His commandments, how we "make disciples of all nations."
Having risen with the Son of God, new men, we're off to our work today, heads held high, inviting all we meet to share in the joy of this glorious Easter Season!
Happy Easter!
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