Easter people

“WE are the Easter people and Alleluia is our song!,”  or so goes a beautiful post that one reads in social networks.  Quite a number of Easter greetings such as this went viral online this Easter, probably as never before.    But, of course, there were improprieties, too, such as that unwelcome photo on Facebook which earned a heap of criticisms.

               

And there are threads about how much “Easter people” could Christians be.    One sites, for instance, about Churches in the country that are overcrowded to the hilt on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday—and streets teeming with thousands of people doing Visita Iglesia such as the one in Intramuros—but dwindles comparably on Easter Vigil and on Easter Sunday.

                Admittedly, this tells about the breed of Christianity Filipinos have. And quite quickly, one may cursorily submit causal factors such as the all-time lack of catechesis and what not.   For sure, there might be other reasons such as the cultural ones and perhaps even the liturgical—without mentioning about people who doze off through the 9 readings without getting a thing due perhaps to poor sound system or, again, the lack of appropriate catechesis.

                Due to the widening lacuna between faith and life in a lot of believers, one would not take issue at comments such as that of Mahatma Ghandi who said, “If it weren’t for Christians, I’d be a Christian.”  Or even a stronger one by a famous German philosopher, Fredrick Nietzsche who justified his non-belief with “I might believe in the Redeemer if His followers looked more redeemed.”

                Indeed, while the thread goes on and on whether Christ has really risen and its impact on his followers, the best proofs of the resurrection are neither the scientific nor the theological but the moral—the complete turn-around of the lives of the apostles, including St. Paul who was a persecutor of Christians and the succeeding believers through the centuries.

                Easter need to be manifested in every Christian as a definitive way of life. Or as Archbishop Angel Lagdameo of Jaro curtly puts it:  “Do not stay on your Good Friday…move on to your Happy Easter.