“Easter is truly a verb, a dynamic event pushing upward from the darkness into the light.”
Christians are Easter people. What that means to me is that we are dynamic: always growing, changing, moving, and engaging. Even those of us who cannot be “in motion” physically—because of necessary employment, family responsibilities, or health issues—can experience the interior “movements” of the soul that are such a focus in the spiritual exercises.
Every day the risen Christ invites us to move, to allow the breaking open that happens in a heart that is open to God and to all that divine love brings to us. We sense the inner movement, we listen to the voice of the Spirit, we pay attention to even fleeting emotions and responses that can be, in God’s hands, tools for our ongoing creation.
What does it mean to live Easter-ly?
- It means that I allow myself to feel what I am feeling, and to work with those emotions, bringing them to prayer and asking the Holy Spirit to use the energy of those emotions to move me forward in some way.
- It means that I attend to people and situations within my circle of influence, always looking for ways to “help souls,” to interpret God’s love in specific circumstances.
- It means that I move into my life rather than try to avoid it, deny it, or run from it.
- It means that I quiet my life enough to perceive what God is saying to me, in my one life, this day.
Blessed, happy, holy, lovely Easter to you!
By Vinita Hampton Wright – She is a Loyola Press editor and writer of many books, including Days of Deepening Friendship and Simple Acts of Moving Forward.