The Most Wonderful Time of the Year: A Reflection for the Easter Triduum
My husband and I often find ourselves debating the best and worst seasons of the year (weather not liturgical). He attributes his love for summer to his southern Italian blood and sees fall as already defeated by the foreboding cold and darkness of winter. Spring, he insists, is a time of hope as the days grow longer and we are given tastes of the warm weather that is to come. I definitely share his love for his summer and I also love the crispness and beauty of fall (especially in New England) and the adventurous spirit demanded by winter. Spring for me is painful. It feels like the worst of winter – the cold and dampness to be specific – is holding on and torturing you until at last summer frees you from the bonds of chilling winds and muddy messes. I will concede, however, that the Easter Triduum gives a good reason for spring to indeed be the most wonderful time of the year.
The Easter Triduum marks the final few days of Holy Week. It begins with the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday, pauses in silence and awe during the Good Friday service, and culminates in the glorious Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday. For those who suffer, entering into the Triduum can be a way of experiencing anew the triumph of hope over despair. The divorce of our parents may have resulted in the “death” of our family of origin as we had known it; and yet, God doesn’t leave us in that void. As Wendell Berry says so beautifully in his novel Hannah Coulter, “It was this body of our suffering that Christ was born into, to suffer it Himself and to fill it with light, so that beyond the suffering we can imagine Easter morning and the peace of God.” The Easter Triduum reminds us of God’s provision, of God’s nearness, and of God’s great plan for our lives.
Holy Thursday – God Provides
Holy Thursday, with its commemoration of the institution of the Eucharist and the priesthood at the Last Supper, reminds us of God’s great provision. As Catholics, God left us more than just ideas and truisms to cling to; He left us His very self, most especially in the Eucharist. St. John Chrysostom wrote, "How many of you say: I should like to see His face, His garments, His shoes. You do see Him, you touch Him, you eat Him. He gives Himself to you, not only that you may see Him, but also to be your food and nourishment."
The priest, in addition to cooperating with the graces of Holy Orders to make God present to us in the Eucharist, is himself a conduit of God’s love, mercy and grace. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says this about priests:
In the ecclesial service of the ordained minister, it is Christ himself who is present to his Church as Head of his Body, Shepherd of his flock, high priest of the redemptive sacrifice, Teacher of Truth. This is what the Church means by saying that the priest, by virtue of the sacrament of Holy Orders, acts in persona Christi Capitis: It is the same priest, Christ Jesus, whose sacred person his minister truly represents. Now the minister, by reason of the sacerdotal consecration which he has received, is truly made like to the high priest and possesses the authority to act in the power and place of the person of Christ himself (virtute ac persona ipsius Christi). (CCC 1548)
We thus approach the priesthood with gratitude for the way it makes visible God the Father’s love for us.
Over the course of the pandemic and turmoil of the past year, our pastor did everything in his power to make the sacraments available to us while following in perfect obedience both the CDC guidelines and those put out by our bishop. During lockdown, this took the form of taking the Eucharist up in a small plane to bless the diocese, riding in the back of a jeep through the parameters of his parish with the monstrance in hand, and offering rooftop Adoration. This loving father found creative ways to offer Confession, sitting for hours outside in the cold, and to celebrate Mass, standing for hours outside in the hot sun. He was a true shepherd in every sense of the word and one couldn’t help but feel the love of Christ through the gift of his priesthood. There is no substitute for a good, holy, and fatherly priest and such a man can be a real balm, especially to any fatherless or father-wounded individuals.
For the child of divorce who may feel orphaned and/or alone, God gives us - embodied souls that we are - Himself perfectly in the Eucharist, as well as the gift of His fatherly love in the person of the priest.
Good Friday – God Provides and God is Near
Much can be said about Good Friday and the generosity of a God who descended to live among us and suffer with us. On the cross, Jesus cried out to God His Father. While Jews at the time would have been scandalized to call God “father”, Jesus used the term abba – daddy – when He taught his disciples the Our Father prayer, suggesting that it is possible for us too to claim God as our Heavenly Father. The Catechism explains that the Holy Spirit transforms the Our Father into a life-giving prayer:
But Jesus does not give us a formula to repeat mechanically. As in every vocal prayer, it is through the Word of God that the Holy Spirit teaches the children of God to pray to their Father. Jesus not only gives us the words of our filial prayer; at the same time he gives us the Spirit by whom these words become in us "spirit and life." Even more, the proof and possibility of our filial prayer is that the Father "sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!'" (CCC 2766)
And:
Incorporated into Christ by Baptism, Christians are "dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus" and so participate in the life of the Risen Lord. Following Christ and united with him, Christians can strive to be "imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love" by conforming their thoughts, words and actions to the "mind . . . which is yours in Christ Jesus," and by following his example. (CCC 1694)
While we lost our identity as God’s children because of original sin, Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross allows us to be born anew into that reality. St. Paul emphasized this, saying, “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption. When we cry, Abba! Father! it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Rom 8:15) In those days, if you had a sickly baby, it was acceptable to leave him to die. However, if you adopted a child, there was no turning back. Adoption was irreversible. St. Paul is not only reminding us that we can call God our Father but that we can do so knowing that nothing we do – or don’t do – can ever change that reality and that identity. This is so freeing, especially in the case of the child of divorce, or anyone who may feel that his identity is compromised by a broken and fractured past. The Father’s love is the truest origin of our being. God provides and…
God is near. Catholic Churches are decorated with actual crucifixes and not just simple crosses; the events of Good Friday ever remind us that God is near to us, especially in our suffering. St. Teresa of Calcutta once observed, “I still think that the greatest suffering is being lonely, feeling unloved, just having no one... That is the worst disease that any human being can ever experience.” The experience of feeling alone is all too common. Our culture has certainly dismissed the wounds of children of divorce and the Church sadly has often done the same. I remember hearing a bishop describe annulments as the Church’s pastoral response to adults who are divorced and remarried. What about the Church’s pastoral care of the children? On Good Friday we meditate on a God who echoes and affirms our cries of abandonment, pain, and uncertainty. God is near to us.
Holy Saturday – God Fills Us
After every Good Friday is an Easter Sunday. As a cradle Catholic, I was unaware of the Easter Vigil even existing until college. The Mass of the Lord’s Resurrection, which intentionally starts after the sun sets on Holy Saturday, serves the practical purpose of welcoming home adult converts to the faith, but it is so much more. Words are unable to capture the fullness of the beauty and richness of the Easter Vigil; it truly is the most wonderful night of the year. One can’t help but be full of wonder at the power and generosity of God as the Mass begins in the darkness cast by Good Friday, chases the hope of the patriarchs and the prophets, and crescendos with the light of Christ, who has vanquished death. On this night we are invited to see each of our stories within the story of salvation. Our family of origin, like so many of the families essential to God’s plan for salvation history, is filled with sinners and saints. As the Church is transformed from a black, despairing cave to a light-filled banquet bursting with God’s mercy and glory, see yourself, the life God has given you and receive it – all of it – anew as gift. God desperately wants to take your dry bones and fill them again with life, with hope and with love. He won’t stop when you are merely full, He wants to fill you to overflowing.
It’s hard to accept our own poverty but the mysteries of Easter, so beautifully made real to us throughout the Easter Triduum, remind us that our poverty is a reason to rejoice because only empty vessels can be filled entirely with the life, love and peace of God.
Shaina Pia lives in Connecticut with her husband and children. Prior to receiving her Masters in Theology of Marriage and Family at the John Paul II Institute, she worked as a medical journalist having obtained a Bachelor degree in Journalism from Boston University. After briefly working for a diocese in New England, she taught high school theology for eight years and now works as a stay at home wife and mother.