The Easter Octave Unfolds

by Sr. Karen Mohan, VHM

"Alleluia!" Easter Baskets for our neighborhood children, courtesy of St. Odelia's parish

“HAPPY EASTER!!  This can be our daily greeting as the octave of Easter unfolds. Yes, for eight days we are steeping ourselves in the life of Jesus RISEN!  Many wonder how Easter is celebrated in our monastic community?  Well, I would say, “FULLY!”

Every part of our day throughout the Triduum was given over to prayer and the Liturgical celebrations of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, the Easter Vigil and the “feast of feasts” itself: EASTER Sunday!  From that fullness, our monastery’s  “Easter look” began to take shape.  The chapel became a “resurrection garden” complete with the Paschal candle and Easter water from our baptismal renewal at the Vigil; and in our two houses all the Lenten purple was replaced with Easter colors, Resurrection icons and flowers.

Outside, our garden cooperated in this transformation!  The tulip fronds peeked out and even the rhubarb — looking like fists of spring green and red — began to make its presence known.   On Easter Sunday a few jonquils and tulips blossomed in honor of our Risen Lord!  To people living in warmer climates, all of this is no big deal.  However, those of us in THIS part of the world are still in shock that we had no March snow in Minneapolis — for the first time in 100 years! — and we had a few flowers in bloom on Easter Sunday!

During the Easter octave, at our Liturgy of the Hours, we chant the same psalms and antiphons during the Easter octave:

Our Easter Chapel, aka, "The Resurrection Garden."

The splendor of Christ risen from the dead has shone on the people redeemed by his blood, alleluia

The Lord has risen as he promised

This is the day the Lord has made, alleluia!

The wisdom of the Liturgy is to let the Easter message take hold of us, and repeating these sung  antiphons and the psalms helps  us in that process.

One of our dear friends, Linda Goynes, came in to the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil! She is a great gift to the Roman Catholic Community at Ascension Parish and in our neighborhood.  In honor of her confirmation, after the Vigil we welcomed a number of her friends and faith companions to our monastery for a little reception.  Hospitality is always an extension of Eucharist for us and an opportunity to build community with others.

Sister Mary Frances baked 30 loaves of “Easter bread” to share with our neighbors, and our friends, the Delmonico grocers, provided the ham for the occasion.

Easter Blessings! The sisters gather around Vis Companion and newly baptized Catholic, Linda Goynes

That hospitality continued on Easter Sunday when some of Sister Katherine’s and Sister Mary Frances’   family members joined us after Mass,  and in the afternoon, helping us welcome over 100 children to receive the Easter baskets prepared by caring people from St. Odelia’s Parish.  One of my favorite parts of this afternoon was bringing six little children up to the chapel at the Girard house for a thanksgiving prayer to Jesus. I taught them an “Alleluia “song and we later sang it for our guests.  One of the children, new to me, came from a troubled house down the block where a shooting had taken place just five days before.   I hope she will keep that “Alleluia” song in her heart. Her presence reminded me that Easter is not a sentimental feeling but a deep and abiding trust that the power of God’s life will always triumph over whatever darkness we encounter. And whatever experience any of us has with the Risen Jesus will always be accompanied by the people with whom he loved most: the children, the poor, the suffering and those bound by life’s heavy burdens.

“…whatever experience any of us has with the Risen Jesus will always be accompanied by the people with whom he loved most: the children, the poor, the suffering and those bound by life’s heavy burdens.”
– Sr. Karen Mohan, VHM

As our community drove over to  be with our Sisters in Mendota Heights in the late afternoon where we would join them for Vespers  and   Easter dinner together, our motto, “LIVE + JESUS,” came to my heart. This is what Easter at the Visitation Monastery is all about:  celebrating the One in whom “we live and move and have our being”….

May Jesus come alive in you, my reader, in me and in all our Visitation Sisters throughout the world as we celebrate our 400^th anniversary this year!

May the words of the Jesuit poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins  take hold of all of us this Easter octave:

Let Him Easter in us

Be a dayspring to the dimness of us

Be a crimson-cresseted east.