Holy Laughter

Rejoice!

It is Easter!

He is Risen indeed! Indeed He is Risen!

Painting, Fra Angelico

I love Easter, my favorite holiday. It is. It is just too full of pure grinning hugging laughing tear blinking elation. The ever great guys over at Godzdogz make a good point, often lost in the hussle of dying eggs and gobbling candy and oohing and cooing at the beautiful little kids in their Easter bonnets and best:

but this is THE big reversal! This is the big laugh out loud rejoicing because death itself has been foiled. And we can laugh the purest laugh of sheer joy and gratitude at the mind blowing goodness of it all.

Gosh any teen boy worth his salt or brash "too cool for you" comedian should be clapping his hands and howling at the pure "great one" of this day: He didn't die. He turned death upside down, reversing it for all, for all time. Now that makes the purest truest laughter spring forth, when you really think about it. Because that laughter starts as unsure, tiny niggles of fear, "Can it really be true, c'mon? Do you really believe that?" And now, well, Yeah! He already has spoken with Mary Magdalene and called her by her name!

Painting by Bouguereau, "The Holy Women at the Tomb"

She was so amazed that she ran off to tell the disciples. Talk about taking your breath, blowing your mind...think she just cooly stood there and gazed and thought, "Meh?"
Um, no. I think she ran and tripped and her mind was racing and she couldn't get to them fast enough. And, as an aside (because I am all about asides) I love it that He saw her first: a woman, a sinful woman who was trying her best, and who made huge changes in her life, because of Him. That gives me hope, that kind of mercy and love.

Anyhow, so, even though I oh so often tear up at the vigil Mass (especially if I catch sight of my dear friend Sonja, who always cries...because it just means SO much to her), at the end of the Mass, after the traditional recessional song of "Jesus Christ is Risen Today," (Played and sung LOUD and with jubiliation)...at the end, I want to laugh and shout and clap my hands and grin stupidly from ear to ear. Because it's real.
It's the BIG reversal, the ultimate gift.
And it's ours.
Whoa.
That's just pure pure JOY. Jubilation!
It's just the best.
It's holy laughter.

Happy Happy Easter!

Michaelangelo's drawing, "The Resurrection of Christ"