Monday of Easter Week

All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Thus wrote W.B. Yeats in his poem, Easter 1916, about the Easter Monday uprising in Dublin, Ireland. We can say the same of that uprising on Easter Sunday in Jerusalem, when Jesus rose from the grave.

Beauty is reborn in our hearts as we renew our baptismal promises at the end of Lent, turning back to the Lord once again. We have, like the devout Muslim, conducted jihad within our own hearts, rooting out evil desires and dedicating ourselves to the simple pleasures God gives to us.

Among those simple pleasures I think of breathing. We saw Jesus expire on the cross as his last breath fell from his gaping mouth.  But now he lives again and he has breathed on us his Holy Spirit.

So many people, young and old, complicate their breath with tobacco or marijuana smoke.  I meet them in the hospital, suffering COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and cancer. At one time they knew the simple joy of breathing; but, seduced by this world’s promises, they forgot.

Each morning, after grumbling my way out of bed and shaving, I do some yoga-type stretching. It warms the body, wakens the heart and refreshes the respiration. Then I sit for a half-hour and breathe. It’s a form of prayer. I let God be my God as I consecrate that time to the pleasure and privilege of breathing.  Often during the day, as I climb steps at the hospital or relax during the Mass, that morning prayer for breath comes back to me. How sweet it is.

This practice of breathing takes my awareness right up against the edge of life. It reminds me that if I stop breathing for two or three minutes, I am dead! I can go without water for a day, food for several days, and sex for a lifetime, but I must breathe continually. That’s how God made me and it is very good.

Breathing also reminds me of the gazillion green plants on this earth that provide my oxygen. I thank them for that. They in turn thank me for carbon dioxide.

On this Easter Monday, as we bring new vitality to our responsibilities, we thank God for the terrible beauty born during that Passover weekend in Jerusalem, so many years ago. By dying and rising Jesus has reminded us of the simple pleasures of life and its unqualified goodness.