Iwona
How surprised I was when my student told me that in the Catholic church during Saturday midnight mass (sic!) people hold that candle and say to each other „Christ is risen!”
And someone will ask: where have you been hiding? Tell me also that you ate meat on Good Friday! Yes, from the fire, washed down with beer. Friday was a beautiful day, it would be a sin not to take advantage of it.
And let me explain myself: I love Easter! This has been my favorite holiday since I was a child, when the first sugar bunny came to me.
Nay! I quickly discovered that it wasn’t about the bunny. My grandmother let me know that there was Someone who died for me in my place and that I could officially hope that one day I would live forever, even when my body ceased to exist. And I took it very seriously, with childlike faith.
As the years passed, questions began to swirl in my head; live forever, but HOW to live? And where will He be then, will I ever meet Him, will I thank Him? What is He like?
Years passed when THAT day came. March 28, 2005, when my life began to change irreversibly. Because I got to know Him. He came and dwelt in me – after a few more days I knew it with every nerve, atom, every particle of consciousness. What was written was being fulfilled in me (John 14:23, John 7:37).
It’s a long story and it’s still going on. What does it have to do with Easter? Well, a few weeks ago, a friend – a believing Catholic – asked me what I was planning, how I was going to spend this time. And I started thinking about it.
Around me are plans to experience Holy Week, day by day, and so that no one will blame me – because I am not against it. On the contrary: let everyone do what nourishes their soul at a given moment, what deepens it and directs it towards God.
So I started thinking. And finally I came to a fact – shocking to some – that I don’t need any holidays. No special contemplating plan. Nothing really.
Jesus is with me every day, from the moment I wake up, throughout the day, when I fall asleep, and even in my dreams. I feed on His word and I only care about getting to know Him. I don’t want anything more than that, nothing will satisfy me, nothing makes me happier.
I am not waiting for the wedding anniversary to „experience the relationship” with my husband, and it would be artificial to wait 12 months to experience what already happened on the cross, and which I decided to „take advantage of” a long time ago, thus becoming an heir to the Kingdom of God. And experience it according to a specific pattern, at a specific pace.
I heard some pretty wise words recently: You don’t wear or worship a photo of someone you interact with on a daily basis. Just someone who is far from you.
I realized that Christ is part of me, Someone who lives in me, Who I have contact with every day and Who I never have enough of, Who I am not satisfied with – and at the same time I am because He is enough. I don’t wear His photos, I don’t worship images, and therefore, Easter, my beloved holiday, awaited every year, is the holiday of bunnies, Easter eggs, salads and catkins. And undying (lifelong – that’s too small a word in this case) gratitude and inner joy.
Let all shops, cinemas, schools and bars be open on Easter. Let there be no Easter baskets in stores, let there be the football world cup, hail storms and artillery fire. And nothing, absolutely nothing will change the fact that over two thousand years ago there was Someone, planned from the foundation of the world, who had a plan to spend eternity with me and you and rode roughshod over …nobody but Himself, to achieve it.
And how is it with you? Share, pls.
And one poem, by the way
It’s all happened before
palm trees in front of the donkey,
lamb at the last supper.
Easter eggs were rolling on the road to Jerusalem,
and the bunnies crouched to the empty grave.
Jesus ate a salad after his resurrection
and chased with some cheesecake.
It’s all happened before.
So nothing will surprise me, nothing will sanctify me,
won’t fill me with mysticism
except for one single fact:
that He was for me then, and I am in Him now,
we together for infinite forever.
29 III 2024
