The glory of Easter

Sister Rejane  
Hello, everyone, and Happy Easter. I'm Sister Rejane, and I have my community-mate Sister Pat Johanssen with me. And we're going to share some Easter memories with you all. I'm going to let Sister Pat take it away with a very unusual story, or at least it's giving me history about our Catholic Church that I did not know existed: an Easter Vigil morning, I guess is the correct way of saying it. So you want to start us off, Pat?

Sister Pat  
Yes, I must have been in first or second grade. And I think that I was going to be in the procession. At any rate, this was in Shelby, Montana. And the Easter vigil was going to be on Saturday morning. My mother could not go because she was getting food ready for Easter dinner. So she told me I needed to go. So I put on my little Easter dress and an Easter hat that mom had bought me just for Easter -- she told me I could wear it to the Easter Vigil. And then she told me to be sure I held on to it, because the wind was blowing a lot. And so I walked down the hill to our church in Shelby, Montana. And I don't remember very much about the Easter Vigil. Except that there were lots of prayers, and it was very long. And it was a very windy day. And people have kind of said, "You must not remember that right. Easter Vigil has never been in the morning." But yes, indeed, historically, Easter vigil was in the morning -- on Saturday morning.

Sister Rejane  
And give us a timeframe. Like what decade are we talking?

Sister Pat  
It was the mid-50s. I think it was 1954 or 1955. Because I know I had made my First Communion, and that's why I was going to be in the procession.

Sister Rejane  
Okay. Yeah. See, I had no idea. I just assumed Easter Vigil was always at night. But who knew that in our US Catholic Church, at some point in the history, there were Easter Vigil morning Masses. You can look it up. Didn't you search that on the on the web and find some of the information, Pat?

Sister Pat  
Yes, I did. And Easter Vigil had been at night. And then they just kept moving it and moving it until it was Saturday morning, Holy Saturday morning.

Sister Rejane  
So that's a new piece. You are a wealth of information for me, Pat, and I so appreciate it. And I just had to have that shared with our audience. So maybe if you talk to some of your parents or grandparents, you may find out that they had similar situations like that. The creativity of our liturgies over time. I can't share on that level at all. But I can certainly talk about Easter Vigil in the evenings. And, you know, this is the great feast of our church. Technically, you know, Easter and the Triduum, which begins with Holy Thursday and goes through Holy Saturday, is the pinnacle of our Catholic Christian tradition. It's more important than Christmas. If there are any kids out there listening, I know we might have a debate on our hands -- but from a Catholic liturgical sense because we, as Christians, so much identify with the crucifixion, through the resurrection. This is where our church and our faith really is grounded. And, as a church, this is our point of real depth of faith and embracing both the suffering and the joy that comes with crucifixion and resurrection. So it's a both/ and; you've got to go through the crucifixion to get to that Easter joy. You cannot separate them. So that's my pastoral take on the Triduum -- I'm not a teacher of the church. But you know, one thing we all know, we can all relate to, is that these Easter Vigil services are the longest in the liturgical year. And I have a memory of a friend who was an adult who came into the church -- his name was Mike. And I remember the service began at 8pm. And there were probably 25 people coming into the church. And it was beautiful. And, you know, they did all seven readings. There is some flexibility with whoever's planning the liturgy -- this is the Liturgy of the Word -- that you can do less, but they chose to do all seven. And then, you know, depending how many baptisms there are versus some people just have First Communion and Confirmations because they've been baptized in another Christian faith, and so that's accepted, that's universally accepted. So anyway, I know I was there at this church until after midnight. So it was over four hours long. I believe that was the longest Easter Vigil that I've ever attended. But it was also very powerful. I just remember, especially knowing someone becoming Catholic and coming into the Church, it has that much more meaning -- but it's still important for us to be there and support our new members coming in. So if I can, I do try to go to these because it really shows the historical companionship of our God walking with us through our history and time,  and the important symbols of fire and water, and how they're woven together and part of creation. I don't know, Pat, what's the longest Easter Vigil you've gone to?

Sister Pat  
Probably an Easter Vigil in South Sudan.

Sister Rejane  

Really?

Sister Pat
Yes.

Sister Rejane  

All right. For our listeners, Pat, you spent over four years kind of as a missionary with Solidarity for South Sudan, correct?

Sister Pat  
Yes.

Sister Rejane  
All right. Yeah. Tell us the story.

Sister Pat  
Okay. Well, I had come to South Sudan in April. So I had been there just around a week. And they said we were going to go to the Easter Vigil. And it would be where the school was. It was going to be outside, and they had built a shade over it. And the altar was going to be up high on this kind of stage. But first when we walked in, they had the wood piled at the back for the Easter fire. And it was way higher than my head. I think the pile of wood was at least 10 feet. So when they lit the fire, the flames leapt high, high into the air, maybe 20 feet into the air.

Sister Rejane  
Wow.

Sister Pat  
Yes, yes. And, of course, none of this was in English. So it was all very new to me. But also, it's universal. We'd attended in the United States and there was always the Easter fire -- though usually a very small Easter fire.

Sister Rejane  
Right, because the baptismal candle was lit off of that Easter fire, and then your candles were lit off of that baptismal candle, and that's where the renewal of your baptism comes from. Yes. Okay.

Sister Pat  
So we were holding our candles -- our lit candles -- and all of a sudden, an enormous, a huge amount of flying creatures started flying toward our candles. There were hundreds of them. They were everywhere. I had no idea what they were. And I thought maybe we should blow out our candles or something. Because all these creatures were flying toward the light, our Easter light.

Sister Rejane  
Oh, geez, Pat. I'm sorry, I would be so squeamish, and I think I would have screamed. You know how much I like a lot of creepy crawly insects -- like I love spiders -- but anything that flies... oh, man, I think I would have screamed, Pat. You weren't in the church building, huh?

Sister Pat  
No, we were outside. But it wouldn't have made any difference because the churches there didn't have screens on their windows. So anyway, everybody was just going on. And so I just kind of stood there and didn't bat at the bugs because there were so many of them. And then as soon as we blew out our candles after we had renewed our baptismal promises, they went away. The service continued on, and it was probably close to midnight by the time we finished. There was some translation. So some of the readings were translated into English and then the local language. So that's partially what made it a little bit longer. But then they preach a long time, too. But anyway, when we walked home up the hill, I said, "What were those things?" And they said, "They're flying ants or termites. We just call them termites." And they said, yes, they are drawn toward the light. So that was my longest and probably most unusual Easter Vigil.

Sister Rejane  
I love that you've chosen the word unusual. If I had experienced it, I would have said terrifying. But that's just me, because you know, flying things freak me out. So I'm quite impressed, Pat, that you remained calm and just followed what the local people were doing, which is the right thing to do in that circumstance because they weren't hurting you -- the insects weren't hurting you or biting you, were they?

Sister Pat  
No, they don't bite. They just come toward the light. And that's pretty much all.

Sister Rejane  
Wow, what an experience. Well, thank you for sharing that. Your story of being abroad celebrating Easter prompts me to remember -- you know, I spent a semester in Israel when I was in college at the University of Notre Dame and I just feel so blessed for that experience. And my director at the time -- I had two of them Jimmy Venza and at the time was Father Dennis Madden; he is, I believe, a retired Auxiliary Bishop of Baltimore right now, so Bishop Madden. Just to be there, and you know, they say walking the land is the fifth gospel, right, like being able to walk where Jesus walked. But one of my most memorable times was Easter, we did an Easter sunrise Mass, and Father Madden or Bishop Madden, was the presider. And he was able to get permission on the Mount of Olives. Okay, so we're standing on the Mount of Olives, and we're facing the old city, Jerusalem, and watching the sun come up, and it's coming up behind us, right? So you watch the light gradually hit the wall, and the different parts of the city. One of the mosques has like a gold dome. So it's glittering, you can see the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Golgotha and where Jesus died and where the tomb is. So it's just an amazing, amazing experience, right? And that whole thought of coming out of the darkness into the light, the sun has risen, Jesus has risen from the tomb, having that symbol and to be there. And my parents were there! They had come to visit me. I have a great picture of us on that sunrise morning. And so to be able to share that with them -- it's his stayed with me. So the next year -- because I was a junior when I was there -- so as a senior, my friends and I that were still at Notre Dame, we said, let's gather on a hill at Notre Dame and watch the sunrise on Easter morning. And so we did. And so I've tried to keep that tradition up wherever I am. So when I lived in Wisconsin, I went to Lake Michigan and watched Easter sunrise come up over the water. And when I'm here in Leavenworth, I go to our motherhouse and we have a labyrinth, and I'll walk to the middle and there's a bench, and I can sit and watch the sunrise come up over one of our fields. Even when I lived in Kansas City, Kansas, at Xavier House, one of my good friends Bethany and I went and shared a kind of an ecumenical Easter sunrise morning. It brings joy. It's like having that first joy in the morning. So yeah, that's one of my powerful Easter rituals and things that really symbolize that coming out of the crucifixion and coming out of the tomb. Pat, you got an Easter sunrise story or two?

Sister Pat  
An Easter sunrise that I experienced was in Kansas City, Kansas. They had been advertising on the radio that there was going to be an interfaith sunrise service at this little lake. It was called Big Eleven Lake and it was in downtown Kansas City, Kansas. And it's kind of like a park and people fish at that lake. But it has a little manmade island in it -- it's not really an island because you can walk out to it over this bridge or walkway, I guess you'd say. And it was going to be an ecumenical service. So I decided I wanted to go to it. So I got up very early, like five o'clock in the morning, and went down there, not anticipating that there was a very heavy dew. And I'd dressed up. So walking through the grass, there was lots of dew. Then the benches faced this little island thing. And they had a music group that played beautiful Easter songs. Now, they were ecumenical, they weren't any Catholic songs that I knew, but they were beautiful Easter songs. And then there was the proclaiming of the readings. Even though it was kind of chilly and damp -- and the benches were damp, too, from the heavy dew -- it was a beautiful experience. It was really nice because all the people wanted to know who everybody was, and what church they had come from. So that was a delightful Easter sunrise service.

Sister Rejane  
Yeah, yeah. And it takes me back. I lived in Kansas City, Kansas for about eight years. And I know exactly where Big Eleven Lake is, and it's a beautiful spot. It's fun to kind of reminisce about different places we've been, and our celebrations and our memories of Easter. So I think we should close with one here in Leavenworth, don't you think, Pat? For the audience, Sister Pat works at our Interfaith Community of Hope, which is a shelter for homeless guests. And so you kind of started a tradition last year: we opened up our home to them at Easter time. And you're gonna do it again this year, aren't you? You want to share with the group what we got?

Sister Pat  
So we, we have a rather large house that has a lot of living space. The dining room and living room are connected -- it's a quite big space. And our guests always have to go through a line.

Sister Rejane  
At the shelter, right?

Sister Pat  
At the shelter, yes. Their food is always dished on to their plate for them. And so I spoke to a couple of my other friends. And one of them had been the executive director of the Interfaith Community of Hope. And I said, I'd like to have Easter dinner at our house -- we didn't have too many guests that were staying around for Easter. Sometimes they get to go to relatives' houses and stuff. So we cooked the Easter meal, and they came. Well, I actually brought them over. And we had a sit-down meal. We put all the food on platters and in bowls, and passed it around the table. And it was just a lovely meal. And afterwards -- this sounds kind of crazy to do this for adults, but it's kind of fun because they get things -- we had an Easter egg hunt. But in truth and fact, it was an Easter bag hunt. Because we had put some candy and some gift cards and things in little bags, and it was kind of like a treasure hunt. They each had their own set of clues and went from place to place until they finally found their bag, which was inside, though most of the clues were outside. But that was a lovely day, where they kind of got to be more like a family.

Sister Rejane  
And eat on you know real plates, use real silverware. Just a more intimate setting. And Pat, your old teacher ways always shine through when I hear about you creating activities for the guests like that Easter egg hunt. I just think it was a special time and am grateful that three of our other sisters could help you with that meal. I myself was at my parents', celebrating with them. But I did help at least set up the house and get the get the tables ready. So just grateful that we have this house and this space and we can share it with you know our neighbors and people that are without at this time. Well, to our audience, we wish you a blessed Easter season and we hope that sharing some of our memories will inspire some of your memories too, that you may want to share with friends and relatives. And we just pray that the risen Christ bless you and this Easter time would be filled with joy. God bless.

Sister Pat  
Happy Easter.

Sister Rejane  
And Happy Easter!

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.