We are only just past the halfway point of Easter, with another two and a half weeks before Pentecost.
It is a good time to remember that each season of the liturgical year comes with an accompanying task. Advent is preparation, Lent is conversion, Ordinary Time is deepening. This long season of Easter comes with a task, too, and in fact it is somehow the most important.
What is the task of Easter? Joy.
Yes, even joy must be a task. But that's actually good news.
But why might it be considered the most important task of the liturgical year? Because joy is the great evangelizer.
Perhaps you've never thought of it that way. I hadn't, really, until the priest at Mass some days ago proposed this idea of seasonal tasks, and joy being a task. What he said makes a lot of sense.
Beauty will save the world, and charity makes others exclaim, "see how they love one another." But if we are the ones who believe death has been conquered, then surely we must be characterized not only by beauty and charity, but by joy.
Think of death in the times of Jesus. Without the technology of modern medicine, death was so much a part of life. Babies and children died, and mothers died giving birth to them. Little things -- a tooth ache or a scratched leg -- could suddenly end in death. Antibiotics, surgeries, blood transfusions -- all of it has given us a sense that death is something we can avoid. And oftentimes we can, and we do.
And yet even with all our modern triumphs, we too have to eventually accept death for ourselves and our loved ones.
So then, the message that death doesn't have the final word? Of course it was transformative and attractive, especially in the times of Jesus, but also today! And don't we have to be joyful about it?
Thus joy becomes evangelization. "Those are the people who believe death isn't final. No wonder they are so joyful."
Catechism of the Catholic Church
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life - the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us - that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing this that our joy may be complete. (1 Jn 1:1-4.)
What if I don't FEEL joy today?
In the homily, Father spoke about the task of joy as being open to welcoming it and nourishing it.
This is also a helpful mindset shift.
As Fr. Michael Rennier once wrote, "joy itself is not an emotion. Emotions come and go, but a person who is truly joyful remains so even in the midst of difficult circumstances. Joy is a virtue that is stronger than how we feel at any given moment."
Joy, in this sense, is a task. And a task is something we can do, even when we don't feel like it.
It's a task to open our eyes and hearts to welcome all the motives for joy that fill each day. And it's a task to sit with those so that both the emotion and the virtue can be nourished and grow.
From Pope Francis' Easter homily in 2024:
Brothers and sisters, let us stop and reflect on these two moments, which bring us to the unexpected joy of Easter. At first, the women anxiously wonder: Who will roll away the stone from the tomb? Then, at a second moment, looking up, they see that it had already been rolled back.
