Second Sunday of Easter
April 11, 2011
Marlene Milasus, OSB, Benedictine Sisters of Elizabeth, NJ
Easter Every Day
It’s ironic that, prior to the Vatican II renewal of the liturgy, this Sunday had come to be known as “Low Sunday” – to distinguish it from the ecstatic joy of Easter Sunday seven days before.
For the earliest Christians, there was nothing low about any Sunday. It was the day to celebrate the Resurrection throughout the year, because of Scriptural references to the Risen Lord being with his disciples on Easter Sunday, and then again one week later. How did the community celebrate? By hearing the Word proclaimed, and then by sharing at the Lord’s table every Sunday, just like those disciples on the road to Emmaus, on the first Easter evening.
Years ago, a Catholic publishing house offered as one of its Easter cards a close-up photo of a loaf of bread and a cup of wine. On the picture were the words “Easter Every Day”.
This says something to us about how we’re invited to live: always in the light of Easter, always hearing the Word, celebrating Eucharist, and living lives of monastic service as a 24-7 response to the presence of the Risen Jesus among us. This isn’t imaginative poetry; it’s the reality of our lives. And more than ever, as we help our pandemic-weary world to heal and move into a new future — not life as it was, but life as it can be — we need this Easter-consciousness to fill us and then pour itself out in whatever ways the Spirit directs. It’s not a coincidence that, except for the six-and-a-half weeks of Lent, we sing the Alleluia every day, because…it’s Easter every day.
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Sister Marlene Milasus is a member of Benedictine Sisters of Elizabeth, NJ, St Walburga Monastery. Currently, she is serving as community treasurer and liturgist. She works in a monastery retreat program and is a licensed New Jersey boiler operator!
