Happy Easter!

Friday, Apr. 03, 2015

As we Catholics enter this season more joyful than Christmas, I wanted to share words of elation and inspiration. After 40 days of Lenten meditation on Christ’s presence in my life, I wanted to be bursting with the heartfelt recognition that the Resurrection fulfills the promise of the Nativity, and rejoice in the salvation offered by the risen Christ.

Unfortunately, at the moment joy is hard to come by. My foot hurts, just as it has constantly ached for the last four months; I recently learned that some friends are moving away; and all of my plans for the future seem stalled or stale. As far as I’m concerned, “there’s no joy in Mudvillle,” and I haven’t even got an arrogant Casey to blame. There’s just me, vainly swinging away at life and whiffing every pitch.

Normally when I get into a funk this deep, I go for a long walk, preferably a hike in the mountains, but along the Jordan River Parkway will do. An hour or so in nature rarely fails to dissolve a foul mood when it strikes. 

This stupid foot, however, prevents any sort of ramble. Meanwhile, the black cloud enveloping me darkened to the point that I almost backed out of a dinner with friends because I didn’t want to pollute their evening. Instead, I planned to hide in a dark cave (metaphysical or otherwise) until I was fit to be around other beings. 

Despite my resolve, at suppertime I found myself at the restaurant. My friends laughed when I told them one of the many reasons I was in a bad mood: I misspelled the word “Bundt” while writing an article last week, then compounded the error by not catching it when I proof-read, even though I do in fact know the difference in the spelling of the word for the cake with a hole in the middle, and the offensive baseball technique. (Feel free to either be horrified or laugh – I’ve done both.)

My friends’ good-natured teasing reminded me that although in my little world such a slip is akin to a felony, in other people’s reality it’s barely a blip. Then the conversation turned to them, and I caught up on what was going on in their lives. We talked about various things that had nothing to do with my private despair, and the walls of my cave of self-pity melted from neglect.

After dinner, the four of us joined other friends at the Chrism Mass. Every pew at the Cathedral of the Madeleine was filled. Catholics from all over Utah seemed to have accepted Bishop Wester’s invitation to join him and the priests of the diocese in this special celebration. When I looked around I saw my community in all its glorious diversity, a sight I never would have seen if I had gone skulking to my cave. The Asian man behind me, the woman across the aisle whom I think I recognized from the African choir at Saint Patrick Parish, the Spanish-speaking group in front of me and the Anglo friends beside me – all of us formed one body around the altar, the table of the Lord. We sang together in Latin, English and Spanish (with the Greek “Kyrie” thrown in for good measure), and I marveled at how we, who may appear to have so little in common, still manage to create the spectacular tapestry that is our Church.

Just as that thought occurred to me, a woman behind me exclaimed, “What beautiful music!”

Exactly. What beautiful music we do in fact present to the risen Lord. Praise God. Alleluia.