by Fr. David Cinquegrani, CP
This article appeared in the LCWR Occasional Papers - Summer 2020 issue, view as a PDF
For anyone who has ever lived in an institutional building constructed to welcome hundreds of inhabitants at one time, you know the peace and tranquility of a long, empty hallway that has recently been vacated by a visiting group. The space having been well used, is now at rest, and you, who live in that space, can take a quiet, calming breath to renew your spirit and your psyche before the arrival of a new band of pilgrims.
But imagine if that quiet moment in time went on indefinitely, with no hope of new life to fill those hallowed hallways and empty rooms. What if the world shut off for too long and the hope of resurrection waned?
This was the essence of what I experienced on Easter Sunday 2020. The retreat center I had shepherded for more than 20 years was unexpectedly and unwillingly vacant, and that feeling of tranquility had evolved into a deafening silence brought on by the clamor of a virus that had literally taken over the world. A desperate aloneness emanated from this once active mecca of spiritual activity and it felt like an empty tomb that no one visited, not even to meet up with angels or a gardener.
Mandatory separation – some have called it isolation – during the COVID pandemic, has had its benefits, some might say. For those who were too busy with the crush of life’s demands, it was an unplanned respite, a time to jump off the treadmill and find an interval to recollect. But when your life depends on being with people, in person, listening to them speak out loud and not through a computer screen, hearing their hearts beat and seeing the tears well up in their eyes, the social distancing has become like a prison of the heart.
In some ways, the experience of confinement has made me and many others aware of the dark isolation that patients in a hospital or care facility have felt during this historic outbreak of illness. And so we might feel ashamed to express our need for human presence while others languish by themselves and are truly and utterly alone. But there comes a time when we need to smell and touch one another in the flesh in order to satisfy our mortal longings.
“Resurrection calls us to a new life – not an old one."
A fear I have is that a society like ours that had already been careening into technological remoteness with personal communication devices of every kind might never recover its need for physicality. But even Mary touches the risen Christ in the garden; she knows no other way to reveal her aching heart. The response of Jesus to this touch of Mary’s hand seems at once harsh and insensitive, but in a strange twist, it is the essence of the Easter message. “Do not cling to me!” is what we hear from the resurrected one – in Latin – “Noli me tangere!” The heart skips a beat it is so severe.
Resurrection calls us to a new life – not an old one. Something will be different once we can get out of the tomb; it cannot be the same, for we are all irrevocably changed. We cannot cling to the past ways of doing and of being.
On that thorny Easter Sunday 2020, however, I saw something that renewed my spirit as I walked outside from the uninhabited buildings through which I had been wandering. On the grounds of the monastery where I live, I saw families making their way up and down the walking path in the woods, through the Stations of the Cross and around the labyrinth, and I marveled at the way we humans adapt.
On an ordinary Sunday it would be rare to see families walking together on the grounds of our monastery. But in staying apart from others, families have adapted and are uniting in the most astonishing ways.
As hard as this confinement has been for so many, there is a sense that families, neighbors, religious communities, colleagues – might emerge stronger after all. We will have adapted to a point where we will like what we have become – more respectful in relationships, slower in pace, and much more aware of our blessings. Adapting is good – and often we grow new attachments to what we have become.
So, like Mary in the garden, at the end of this crisis we should not expect to find our lives intact. Things will not return to the “normal” we once knew - nor should they.
“Something will be different once we can get out of the tomb; it cannot be the same, for we are all irrevocably changed. We cannot cling to the past ways of doing and of being.”
Just as I miss hearing the laughter of my students in the music room where I teach, the collective breath of my choir as they prepare to sing a phrase together, and the humble eyes of one seeking reconciliation, all of these and the embrace of a friend will now be treasured more than ever in this “new normal,” as will the intimacy of sharing face-to-face as the body of Christ.
The appreciation for these spiritual relationships is something that will never be quite the same because it was disallowed for so long. Our connection with the Divine is remarkable, but so much more dear, when it is found with and in one another’s company.
Connecting to this deeper presence in another is the fruit of letting go of what was to see what may become. It is hard work and, like the words of the risen one to Mary, sometimes unyielding to human instinct. But in the Divine, we have the unwavering help we need to muster courage for the task of accepting what will come from the tomb, while honoring the disappointment that what once was is no longer.
Teresa of Avila, a Spanish Carmelite and doctor of the church, seemed to find the key to trust, amid confusion. Her prayer is a witness for our times:
Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things.
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone is enough. Amen.
Fr. David, a Passionist priest, is the executive director at Holy Family Passionist Retreat Center in West Hartford, Connecticut and has been a music educator for more than 38 years.