Waiting for the Resurrection

The Star of the Immaculate, World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanów, on Good Friday.

I have shared before my favorite online adoration, which, naturally, is in Poland. It is called The Star of the Immaculate, World Center of Prayer for Peace, and you can see it here. I took the screenshot above yesterday evening, during Good Friday, when all the lights and candles were out. Normally the room is blindingly sunny, with alternating soft blue and yellow light throughout the day, candles gently flickering, and pilgrims coming and going. Today, the room is illuminated only by sunlight, and I suspect around 8 pm Poland time tonight, everything will be turned back on, and Mary will be illuminated (as she should be).

This has been a tough Holy Week. I do not love liturgies streamed online (who does?) and do them faithfully because it genuinely is better than nothing, and I can feel a part of something - of the communion of saints also watching. It’s okay for a Sunday. For Holy Week, it doesn’t quite cut it. I was surprised to find I felt that way this week, that hope was harder to muster. Well, it is week four of quarantine, after all.

I talked with Fr. Paul Scalia, Pastor of St. James Church in Falls Church, VA, about spiritual communion and have an article about it coming out Monday. We discussed the human need for the physical: Thomas needing to touch Christ’s wounds; our need to receive the Eucharist. He assured me that spiritual communion is not the same as the real thing, and should serve only as a stopgap. I am looking forward to sharing the article with you.

The most interesting part of the conversation for me, though, was when I asked my very honest question - one that I think is on a lot of people’s minds - that I am having trouble feeling anything is different because of Easter this year. I have this delusion that it’ll act like a magic wand to wipe away the virus and the catastrophic emotional and economic effects, because Easter itself is a miracle, and God loves us and can do that, so why not?

Thankfully, he was understanding and patient of my absurd question. So I share with you his response, which I have been thinking a lot about:

Fr. Scalia says…that even in the darkest hours Christ is still risen.

“The externals for the disciples did not change after the resurrection, but in the deeper sense everything changed. That is the situation now – the truth that Christ is risen. Externally, things are still bad. However, in another sense we are reminded that even in the darkest hours he is still risen. In a sense, it’s something to appreciate even more.”

He says our current lack of things does not change the fact of Jesus’s resurrection. In a sense, it puts it into perspective.

“The resurrection did not make everything perfect, but offers a renewal of life.”

So - yes. Being a Christian does not equate to an easy life, ever. And that’s not the point of being a Christian. It is to live in Truth. And, no matter what our external circumstances - including, God forbid, pandemic and economic collapse - the Truth still exists. This Easter, we are given the opportunity to really see it and believe it with our own eyes, and to live it in our actions.