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Reflections on the Season

In classic Christian spirituality, Easter Season is a time for walking the via lucis, the “way of light.” Its corollary is the via crucis, the “way of the cross.” Imagine a giant circle and a path along its circumference. Half of this path is walked on the via lucis, the other on the via crucis, and the two paths turn into each other as you walk round and round. You can only get onto the way of light by walking the way of the cross, and you won’t stay on the way of light forever. Now imagine that this circle is a spiral, a mountain path, perhaps, that goes round and round, climbing ever higher. You start at the base of the spiral, and it might take you a long time to walk from the via crucis to the via lucis. But the next time you step onto the way of the cross, the distance is shorter. It continues to get shorter, as the spiral thins, until you reach a summit where all is light.

This image is imperfect, of course, but it’s meant to convey that the via lucis isn’t a sudden moment of perfection, or an escape hatch which we can slip through to leave our painful pasts and the world’s imperfection behind. The person who walks the way of the cross also walks the way of light. That person isn’t replaced by the act of stepping from darkness into light. But with each turn around the spiral, some part of who you are is transformed.

I used to like the language of death and life for this. I would ask what thing inside of me needed to die on the via crucis so that something new could be born on the via lucis? I’m not sure I like that language anymore. When I think about my old self, the person who I was in my teens and twenties, I can see his many faults. But I can also see his many virtues, and I can the see the way he planted certain seeds of being that have only come into fruition now that I’m in my fifties. I don’t want that self, or any of my old selves, to die. I want them to be transformed. So now I think it might be better to ask what the via crucis was seeding, and what is blooming on the via lucis.

What is blooming in your life? What gratitudes, what graces, what hopes, what joys? My prayer is that these things might emerge in your life, and in the life of the world, during the next fifty days. In springtime, different flowers come up at different times. Don’t expect resurrection to happen all at once. Just try to remain attentive to it, and to celebrate it when it arrives.

Faithfully,

Karl+

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Our Worship During Easter Season

We don’t kneel during Easter Season. We don’t confess our sins or seek absolution. This is a season when we take forgiveness for granted. When we focus on the beauty and grace of our life, and not on our shortcomings. It is not a season for abasement, but a season for standing upright before God.

After the procession, our worship in this season begins with an invocation, a way of asking God to be present with us. There are many ways to invite God into our worship and our lives, and many names for God that touch on different aspects of God’s presence. During Easter Season, we focus on Christ and resurrection – the ways in which God is present within our humanity and leads us to new life.

A number of ancient hymns are still used by the church in worship. Many of these hymns draw upon scripture. During Easter, we are singing the Gloria in excelsis, a hymn that repeats the words that the angels sang at Christ’s birth. It has been used as an entrance hymn sing the 12th century.

We sing Jack Warren Burnam’s lovely fraction anthem from Wonder Love and Praise during this season, as it is so resonant with Easter themes. It alludes to the disciples encountering the risen Christ on the road to Emmaus, and encountering him in the moment that they broke bread together. It then speaks of our unity in our shared communion.