Haec dies quam fecit Dominus, exsultemus et laetemur! This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it! – We have sung this antiphon for the whole week, morning and evening, to accent the reality that the whole week of Easter is but a “single day’s celebration” as it were, of the Lord’s resurrection.Personally, my Easter celebration this year is quite different: the accent is more on dealing with death rather than celebrating life. And I guess this is just a realistic response to all that has happened to me, and to my religious family, in these past weeks (see my blogs from March 22 onwards). In fact, “death” continues to speak to me: I hold her amorphous essence and alluring shape… I converse with her and wait…till she with Life, dances and connects!
The short reading at Lauds today particularly comforts me: “None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself. For if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord; so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. For this is why Christ died and came to life, that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. (Rom 14:7-9)
There is indeed a very strict connection between life and death, especially if one is a Christian. That connection is Christ himself!
