‘An Easter marked by solitude’

Pope Francis in his urbi et orbi blessing from Rome, ‘on the city and on the world’, for Easter Sunday 2020 referred to this Easter as ‘an Easter marked by solitude’.

We have been made pause. We have stopped in our tracks. ‘Solitary confinement’ one might be inclined to think of this time ruled by Covid-19. But no, Pope Francis says, a time marked by solitude.

What does he mean? A time for quiet perhaps; a time to allow ourselves to be alone; a time for reflection; a time for meditation and contemplation; a time for questions and a time for silence; a time to listen and then to speak; a time to allow his joy be in us and our joy be complete; a time for new beginnings; a time for truth and life, for justice, love and peace; a time for new life.  

‘Till this moment they had they had failed to understand the teaching of scripture that he must rise from the dead.’ (John 20: 9). He is Eastering in us, even now.