Easter hope for the pandemic

April 5, 2020
Veronica Szczygiel
 
Easter is a time to rejoice in our redemption from sin and death through Jesus’ resurrection. We proclaim this great joy during the Paschal sequence: “Christ indeed from death is risen, our new life obtaining. Have mercy, victor King, ever reigning!”
 
Easter is a different celebration this year. In fact, most of us might not experience it as a celebration at all. Many of us will feel sad and alone due to quarantining and social distancing during the pandemic. Instead of gathering, we will be isolating. Instead of receiving Communion at Mass, we will partake it in spiritually through our televisions.
 
It’s okay to feel sadness and to mourn the altered state of our reality. It is a difficult time that none of us had expected or planned. None of us had control over this global situation. And yet, no matter how lonely we feel, we aren’t alone in these feelings. Who better to understand what we are going through than “our paschal lamb, Christ” who “has been sacrificed” (Corinthians 5:7)?
 
After the Last Supper, Jesus brought his disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane, where he begged God three times, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me” (Matthew 26:39). These pleas weren’t signs of weakness but of honesty. Jesus as a human being did not want to suffer even though Jesus as a divine being knew that the great Easter hope – his own resurrection – was to come. In order to attain redemption for us all, Jesus had to suffer at the hands of his fellow humans and, by extension, our sinfulness. In the end, his resurrection made that sacrifice worthwhile. And so, Jesus accepted God’s will for him: “yet, not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39).
 
Bearing this in mind, we can view our current strife with the perspective of allowing God’s will to unfold before us. Easter technically arrived in the church calendar, but we sense that the Easter of this coronavirus crisis is still to come. But it is coming. It may take a while, and it will involve our steadfast patience. Like Jesus, we can certainly pray that this particular cup will pass over us and our loved ones. Even so, we as Catholics know deep down that hope is near and that there will be an end to suffering, because that is exactly what Jesus showed us through his own suffering “so that … by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life” (Romans 6:4).
 
When this Easter hope for the pandemic arrives, it may do so loudly and triumphantly, as in the Gospel of Matthew from the Easter Vigil, or it may do so more quietly, as in the Gospel of John from Easter Sunday. In Matthew’s Gospel, we see the women Mary and Mary Magdalene gain immediate realization of the truth. Not only did they feel an earthquake and hear an angel proclaim that Jesus “has been raised from the dead,” but “Jesus met them on their way and greeted them” and encouraged them to be witnesses to his new life (Matthew 28:7, 9). Perhaps we, too, will have such a sudden and definitive end to this crisis.
 
Or, the pandemic’s end may arrive unannounced. What the Gospel of John from Easter Sunday shows us is victory’s subtlety. Mary Magdalene first thought that Jesus’ body was stolen, and later, Peter remained confused. It was the unnamed disciple – the one who “saw and believed” – who made the first leap of faith toward the truth of the resurrection (John 20:8). The others, however, “did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead” (John 20:9).
 
This is understandable. The disciples just lived through a series of traumatic events, and now they had another surprise to contend with: an empty tomb. So, too, is it with us now. For many of us, this time of social distancing and quarantining is one of chronic stress – whether we are worried for our elderly parents, family members who are medical personnel and other essential workers, or whether we are struggling with anxiety, depression or family strife that is amplified in close quarters. It is in these troubled times that we must remember that there is hope at the end of suffering after all. There is salvation. Whether this salvation to the pandemic comes suddenly or subtly, let us be like “the other disciple … who arrived at the tomb first”: Let us believe (John 20:9).
 
Veronica Szczygiel, Ph.D., is the assistant director of online learning at Fordham University’s Graduate School of Education and a contributor to The Tablet, the official newspaper of the Diocese of Brooklyn. www.veronicaszczygiel.com