Yesterday, with “Quasimodo Sunday,” the Easter Octave came to its conclusion. Most of us picture a hideous hunchback haunting the belltowers of Notre Dame in Paris when we hear the word “Quasimodo,” from Victor Hugo’s 1831 Romantic novel. But the poor foundling, raised by the canons of Notre Dame, received that name because he was born on Quasimodo Sunday, which takes its name from its opening verse: in Latin, Quasi modo geniti infantes…. (“In the way newborn children thirst for pure milk…,” so we must thirst for the Living God.
It's a beautiful verse, but we sang an even better verse every day of the Easter Octave: Haec dies quam fecit Dominus; exultemus et laetemur in ea, Alleluia. “This is the day the Lord has made; let us exalt and rejoice in it, Alleluia.” Every day is God’s gift, His creation, but none more than Easter Day, when He recreated the entire universe, giving life and health to what was dying.
I now suffer a chronic disability, and over the last two years wake up every morning in some bit of pain, struggling to function well, not knowing how difficult the day will be. It’s the first time in my life that I have borne a persistent infirmity, although many others have lived with such debilities all their lives. I had a good run of near-perfect health for 62 years, and a chronic sickness does take a bit of getting used to. Some days, it’s hard to believe that God made the day in which I am living, with all its frustrations. Some days, it's rather hard to trust that weakness has its purpose in God’s all-wise plan. The annual Easter Octave certainly helps one to rejoice and be thankful in ea, “in it," and to believe that God knows what He is doing. Today is the day that God has made, for me and for all of us, and it is very good, in all its joys and sorrows.
These eight days of Easter have been given us to believe again, over an entire week, in the goodness of this day, the day we are in right now. For thirty years, a couple of us priests have spent at least a few days of the Octave in community. We catch up on sleep and food after the deprivations of Holy Week, and we swap stories about how the Triduum liturgies went in our parishes. We stay at a beach house kindly lent us by friends, a dwelling by the sea, where we chortle over the unexpected events of the Paschal Triduum: how one of the men who sat to have his foot washed on Holy Thursday refused to take off his shoes; how the deacon dropped the Cross during its veneration on Good Friday; how one of the women shrieked as the waters of baptism (too cold!) soaked her at the Easter Vigil. At our beach house, we sing Easter Lauds and Vespers, we offer Mass each morning together, we pray the rosary on long walks along the shore, we ride bikes through leafy avenues and venture forth upon the deep in kayaks, we prepare meals and spend hours at table together, and we laugh a lot.
On the second day of our Easter Break, I did something I haven’t done in a long time: I watched a movie in a theatre with my brothers. It was called Project Hail Mary, and I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.
It's a beautiful verse, but we sang an even better verse every day of the Easter Octave: Haec dies quam fecit Dominus; exultemus et laetemur in ea, Alleluia. “This is the day the Lord has made; let us exalt and rejoice in it, Alleluia.” Every day is God’s gift, His creation, but none more than Easter Day, when He recreated the entire universe, giving life and health to what was dying.
I now suffer a chronic disability, and over the last two years wake up every morning in some bit of pain, struggling to function well, not knowing how difficult the day will be. It’s the first time in my life that I have borne a persistent infirmity, although many others have lived with such debilities all their lives. I had a good run of near-perfect health for 62 years, and a chronic sickness does take a bit of getting used to. Some days, it’s hard to believe that God made the day in which I am living, with all its frustrations. Some days, it's rather hard to trust that weakness has its purpose in God’s all-wise plan. The annual Easter Octave certainly helps one to rejoice and be thankful in ea, “in it," and to believe that God knows what He is doing. Today is the day that God has made, for me and for all of us, and it is very good, in all its joys and sorrows.
These eight days of Easter have been given us to believe again, over an entire week, in the goodness of this day, the day we are in right now. For thirty years, a couple of us priests have spent at least a few days of the Octave in community. We catch up on sleep and food after the deprivations of Holy Week, and we swap stories about how the Triduum liturgies went in our parishes. We stay at a beach house kindly lent us by friends, a dwelling by the sea, where we chortle over the unexpected events of the Paschal Triduum: how one of the men who sat to have his foot washed on Holy Thursday refused to take off his shoes; how the deacon dropped the Cross during its veneration on Good Friday; how one of the women shrieked as the waters of baptism (too cold!) soaked her at the Easter Vigil. At our beach house, we sing Easter Lauds and Vespers, we offer Mass each morning together, we pray the rosary on long walks along the shore, we ride bikes through leafy avenues and venture forth upon the deep in kayaks, we prepare meals and spend hours at table together, and we laugh a lot.
On the second day of our Easter Break, I did something I haven’t done in a long time: I watched a movie in a theatre with my brothers. It was called Project Hail Mary, and I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.
Mass together on the Second Day of the Octave
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