Let’s take a moment to appreciate the opportunity that we had to celebrate the Triduum and Easter back in our parishes. I had several moments during the Triduum when I paused and thought about how meaningful it was to attend these holiest days in a church again and not via livestreaming.
The livestreams helped us, crucially, to remain connected to the liturgical life of the Church during the darkness of Lent and Easter 2020 (and a bit beyond then, for many of us who felt unsafe indoors for a while), but I can’t begin to contrast the substantial difference between gathering in person and gathering around the television for worship.
The Church is a community.
For anyone who had any doubts about the importance of community in the Christian life, 2020 surely dispelled those misgivings. From Zoom gatherings, to online church services and liturgies, and even to cardboard cut-outs sitting in the stands for baseball and football games, we all saw firsthand how much we as human beings, created in the image and likeness of God, need in-person community. These virtual gatherings, socially distanced for the common good and to protect the at-risk among us, served an undeniably good purpose, as they permitted us to gather in adjusted ways and to keep each other safe while attempting to satisfy the human need for communion with one another and with God.
But, now that we can observe guidelines and gather generally safely in our churches, we can see just how much the virtual world pales in comparison to the real and the tangible. Our Christian faith is inherently tangible and physical, even as we acknowledge invisible realities. The Son became incarnate, took on flesh, and entered into our physical world. We receive him in the Eucharist, a physical and mystical reality which, like the Incarnation and our own existence as body and soul, fuses the spiritual and physical world together.
The Lord, through his Church, brilliantly uses physical encounters to allow us to enter into the mystery of his love for us. Even something as abstract as the liturgical calendar, with its seasons of feasting and fasting, its colorful cycles, and the changes in music and the readings makes known to us the presence of God in all times and all places. Time itself, as with all else, is ordered toward God, and not just in a vague way: every single day has a purpose and fits into a rhythm which we see reflected in the physical world, including in harvests, the movements of the planets and stars, and our own life and death.
This Easter season, then, let’s appreciate the physical ways in which the Lord manifests and shows his love for us, and let’s not take for granted the communal aspect of the Christian life.