This Second Sunday of Easter, “Alleluia” of the Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday echoes in our minds and hearts still. With the days of the Octave of Easter complete, we move into the full Season of Easter that will bring us ultimately to celebrate the Ascension of Our Lord and the great Solemnity of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
The “Alleluia” of Easter also resonates freshly in our hearts as we pray and sing the liturgy of this day. We are the community of those called, succeeding the disciples whose experiences John’s Gospel recalls. We are those who believe with every fiber of need and desire to believe, as well as the one who simply could not believe... yet. We are the ones who have been saying with our lives, to the best of our ability, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God,” and the one who can say only now, finally, “My Lord and my God!”
The “Alleluia” of Easter is also the promise of a future moment, of many moments to come, when the full truth and power of what we name and proclaim will be revealed. It is the future to which we are called. It is the future truth of who we are as individual, as family, as Church, as all Creation redeemed by the Cross and Resurrection of Christ. It is the future that comes after choices that hurt or defeat, after strategies that weaken or discourage, after disagreements or betrayal, after illness and even death. As the stores empty their shelves of their “seasonal items” to move onto the next, we know that we are just beginning!
I will be away during the coming week. You will be in my thoughts and prayers, as I hope to be in yours. And then I will be back again as we take up our Easter song on the next, the Third Sunday of Easter... Alleluia!