Easter, 2024

Dear Sisters and Associates,

The last 40 days called us on our journey of faith to keep changing. We were challenged to let go of our fears and all that keeps us from our God. Hopefully we were able to see ourselves more clearly and let the Light of Christ into our hearts and minds. Resurrection requires us to be ready to accept the miracle, to know that our own dying and rising happens each day; yet we live in hope, because like Mary Magdalene, “we have seen the Lord.”

Judy Cannato says “resurrection is an experience of transcendence in which we live out of the connectedness that is our truth”…”we not only walk in the Light, we become the light for others. Even little resurrections that come after choosing to die to fear release the Spirit. When we engage in a lifetime of death and resurrections as Jesus did, we become ever more empowered to do the work God asks us to do.”

All over the world Christians will celebrate the Easter Vigil. They will light the Easter fire and with candles in hand, process in darkness into the Church where we will hear the story of our salvation sung in what is known as the Exsultet. The Paschal candle will be shining brightly reminding us that we do not live in darkness and emptiness. Just like the tomb where Jesus lay is emptied, we too will be filled with the Light that is our risen Lord. The signs and wonders of this Liturgy are so powerful! They tell us of God’s great love for us, his people, his Beloved. Our empty selves can be filled with purpose, we can see the glory of Jesus and understand more fully the vision of Resurrection life. This is God empowering us for mission.

I love, when at the Gloria, the bells ring throughout the song, proclaiming loudly that Christ is Risen from the dead, that death has no more power over him, or us. At that moment I feel like I truly understand what is meant when we say: “We are an Easter people, and Alleluia is our cry.” Somehow the human spirit is broken open then and perhaps for the first time we see what is possible in the impossible. Good Friday has given way to Easter, to new life, to new possibilities—this is the life breath of our faith. This is who we are as Providence people!

These are just some of the signs given us in the beautiful Easter Vigil liturgy. They can speak to us on a deeper level and affect the way we view our lives. It reminds me to always be attentive to events and encounters in my life, to be alert to those touchstones along my journey, be they Easter Vigil signs and wonders—fire, water, baptism, story—or simply the bright yellow daffodils across the street from my office or the small bunny playing in the yard in front of me.

Whether you hear the bells at the Easter Vigil or at the Easter morning liturgy, pay attention!  They ring out a glorious message for Christians everywhere—Christ died for us and rose from the dead and gave us all new life.  We are God’s Beloved now—and nothing can ever change that!  So celebrate that new life with an open and grateful heart!  Be that light for others you meet along the way.  As Judy Cannato says, “we are capable of transcendence, capable of never allowing death to have the final say.”

Easter is the feast that gives meaning to life—the feast that never ends.  You and I must leave the empty tomb and begin the journey all over again.  Today.  Every day.  Always.  Yes, Easter is about dazzling light—but only if it shines through us.  Why?  Because we have seen the Lord!

Happy Easter!

Sister Barbara McMullen

Congregational Leader

Judy Cannato, Radical Amazement:  Contemplative Lessons from Black Holes, Supernovas, and Other Wonders of the Universe (Notre Dame, IN: Sorin Books, 2006), 122.