E
aster is here; the tomb is broken. I wasn't raised Christian, and Easter has a pretty weird, diluted meaning in America. I think I was fairly old before I knew that it had anything to do with Christ -- I just thought it was an excuse to eat candy and see family, basically. This has meant that I enter into the season, as a convert, with a little less emotional structure than I might otherwise have. My wife was raised in a country and culture in which Lent and Easter are the biggest events of the year, full of daily, extremely picturesque and moving parades in the streets, and a host of specific and beautiful customs. For her, Easter is palpable, and she carries that with her into the North, where our traditions are less developed, but are sustained by the ancient Liturgy that our church uses. Christmas is a different story on my end -- Christmas traditions are real up here, and in my family, and the music of Christmas is still inescapably Christ-centered. The translation into my now-Catholic milieu was easy, and Christmas has, if anything, redoubled its power now that I have returned to its roots.
But Easter isn't the same -- there are no broadly-known Easter hymns, and not much of Jesus can be found in the eggs and bunnies and candy. I know that this greatest of Holy Days will grow in me as I age, and more and more of the years fertilize its sacredness (especially as I spend more and more Lents in Gautemala), but for now, I'm within a learning period. I look forward tremendously to being able to give my children the gift of a true holidy suffused with meaning, that they can carry with them their whole lives. Hopefully, between the generations, something that was thought to be dead can return, startlingly, to life.