Easter Is A Verb

The Jesuit Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote a poem with the line, “Let him easter in us.”

Easter is something that happens to us.

It’s a verb, from the darkness into light.

Mary Magdalen has been eastered- freed by Jesus.

Simon Peter has been eastered. The wisdom and joy of a person forgiven!

Saint Paul has been eastered- a complete turnaround.

They have eastered–God can take the worst thing in the world and turn it into the best thing.

We have been eastered in receiving Holy Communion in grace.

The people who have not been eastered explains why even though evil and hatred and suffering have been overpowered, they still hang around by the free will of people.

Being eastered means having interior “movements” of the soul that gives us Easter joy and strength.

It means that I allow myself to feel what I am feeling, bringing them to prayer and asking the Holy Spirit to use these emotions to move me forward in some way.

Christ eastering within us means we have a new center and core from which we live. We now live Christ’s life.

Saint Paul said,

It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal. 2:19-20)

The two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning said, “He has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee.”

Galilee is where he told them that he would die and be raised up. Go there to that place of prophecy where you begin anew. This is where Christian mission resumes. Pope Francis says we must find a Galilee; a returning to our first love, our origin of our journey with Jesus.

How will your life be different with Christ eastering in you?

Amen.

[Compiled from various sources]