“Let Him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a crimson-cresseted east.”

― Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gerard M. Hopkins’  lovely phrase presents a poignant challenge each spring. Yes, it is spring—that time of year when all the world turns into love; buds hurry to blossom; jonquils and dandelions dot the landscape; baby calves and colts are frisky in newly green meadows; and the birds go spastic.

Richer and deeper, spring and Easter have come, and want to come again in our lives. Christ again asks us to roll away the stone that keeps Him from Eastering in us.

Each of us is challenged to ask herself or himself: Do I recognize the stone in my heart and attitude that has got to go—that has got to be rolled away before Easter can happen. What is my stone that I use to keep Christ in the tomb?

May each of us let EASTER really come! May we give Christ the openness He needs to rise in us so that the stone is rolled away, and we are set free. Christ is set free in our hearts so that through us He can teach and touch a crazy-mixed up world so much in need of Resurrection and Christian witnesses.

May each of us be an EASTER PERSON every day!

By Sister Rosella McCormick

On the first day of the week,
Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning,
while it was still dark,
and saw the stone removed from the tomb.
So she ran and went to Simon Peter
and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them,
“They have taken the Lord from the tomb,
and we don’t know where they put him.”
So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb.
They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter
and arrived at the tomb first;
he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in.
When Simon Peter arrived after him,
he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there,
and the cloth that had covered his head,
not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place.
Then the other disciple also went in,
the one who had arrived at the tomb first,
and he saw and believed.
For they did not yet understand the Scripture
that he had to rise from the dead.

Jn 20:1-9

Artwork by Jen Norton. Used with permission.