Easter Week and Random Thoughts

 "Christ is risen!"  "And has appeared unto Simon.  Alleluia!"  This is the traditional Easter greeting and response.  It's almost like a code or a secret handshake among Catholics.  Unfortunately, not even a lot of Catholics know about it.  

I'm thoroughly enjoying Easter; even more than I remember in recent years.  I think one of the reasons for it is because COVID deprived us of a genuine Easter last year and it was almost as if Lent extended until this Easter.  Finally being able to be back in person and experience the Easter Vigil and see people baptized and received into the Church was so wonderful!

So in the kindness of my pastor [who is also my boss] we were given today- Easter Monday- as a day off.  This allowed me to randomly do some reading on the internet.  Here are some things I found.

I overheard an excerpt from Pope Francis' Easter Vigil homily on the radio while driving home from Mass this morning.  I wanted to check it out further.  The excerpt that caught my attention was this: "What does it mean “to go to Galilee? To go to Galilee means, first, to begin anew... This is the first Easter message that I would offer you: it is always possible to begin anew, because there is always a new life that God can awaken in us in spite of all our failures." You can read the whole text here: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/full-text-pope-francis-homily-for-easter-vigil-at-the-vatican.

Then I was reading a piece from Jordan Peterson's recent book, Beyond Order: 12 More Rules For Life. He wrote, "Excess sentimentality is an illness, a developmental failure, and a curse to children and others who need our care (but not too much of it)."  I have often thought this, but it helped to have it verified by a professional.  

Along similar lines I came across this from the National Catholic Register article from April 2, 2021 entitled Why the Negative Is a Positive by Donald DeMarco in which he states, "We are confronted with a clash between truth and sentimentality. In a world ruled by sentimentality, everything is “nice.” It is a utopia in which there is no sin and everyone accepts everyone."  

Taking the two quotes together they touch on what to me has been a very disturbing trend and that is that people arrive at what they perceive to be true by their feelings- how it makes them feel- rather than by reason- whether or not a particular premise is logical.  

And that brings me back to the resurrection and Easter.  Christians believe this to be objectively true and that is what engenders the pleasant, joyful, and, indeed, happy feelings that go along with it.