Every year, I find Easter an opportune time to stop and reflect on my life. Being a Catholic, I journey with Christ through His passion, death, and resurrection. Often times, I spend it at the Cenacle Retreat House with my spiritual director, Sr. Bubbles. It was seventeen years ago at a Holy Week retreat for young professionals that I first stepped foot in the Cenacle. There, I found a welcoming sacred space, where the Lord met me wherever I was in life. There too I met the spunkiest bunch of nuns, who have kindly journeyed with this crazy soul through the years. Sr. Bubbles knows me too well. She knows how I fidget through the darkness of Good Friday and long to zoom straight into Easter’s Resurrection. But when I do deeply enter into Christ’s suffering and come face to face with my own pain, only then do I truly appreciate the depth of Easter.
This year, I did not have the luxury of silence and contemplation at the Cenacle. Instead, I had three days of solitude in my flat. With my body longing for rest and my mind craving to create order in my apartment, it was a struggle to reflect. On holiday mode, I would give in to my body’s persistent desire for carbs and sugar. But with the help of Fr. Johnny Go, SJ’s Pins of Light, online retreat and playing Jesuit music, I somehow managed some periods of reflection.
One word that stayed with me is HOPE. I am not sure whether it is the break from work, the happy pastel colors of spring, or spiritual enlightenment, somehow Easter makes me feel light and full of hope. Surely, the message of Easter is new life. I messaged a friend. “Happy Easter! Here’s to a new hope that nourishes and sustains!” She replied, “To renewed faith, happy Easter!”
I ask myself how can I make this Easter hope last. Easter morning compels me to want to become better. But just like New Year’s resolutions, this resolve quickly fades, even before I can even finish my chocolate eggs.
The most touching reflection from the Pins of Light retreat was I Lived, a song by One Republic. In the music video, it featured a One Republic Fan, Bryan a fifteen-year-old teenager who suffers from Cystic Fibrosis. The life expectancy of disease is thirty-six years. In the video he says, “It’s just one of those things that really makes you appreciate life. It makes me appreciate where you are, as a person. I want to make the most out of my life and have as much fun as I possibly can and my biggest fear is not being able to do that.”
Ryan Tedder wrote this song for his newborn son to remind him to seize the day. In an interview with People Magazine, he was asked what the lyrics “With every broken bone, I swear I live,” means. Tedder said, “So for every day that you’re on this earth, for every minute that you have, the whole idea is doing nothing less than exactly what you feel you’re supposed to do and squeezing every last drop out of life every day, regardless of the difficulties or trials that you face.”
The song rang straight to my heart the first time I heard it two nights ago. I’ve played it dozens of time already. I now call it my Easter anthem. We are an Easter people, called every single day to LIVE, to truly live. I leave you with the lyrics of the song I LIVED and the link to this wonderful video.
I wish you a blessed Easter, and to live in its lasting hope each day. I hope you give it all. May we all one day be able to sing with much gusto, “With every broken bone, I swear I lived.”
I LIVED
Hoping you take that jump
But don’t fear the fall
Hope when the water rises
You built a wall
Hoping the crowd screams out
Screaming your name
Hope if everybody runs
You choose to stay
Hope that you fall in love
And it hurts so bad
The only way you can know
Is give it all you have
And I hope that you don’t suffer
But take the pain
Hope when the moment comes you sayI, I did it all
I, I did it all
I owned every second
That this world could give
I saw so many places
The things that I did
With every broken bone
I swear I livedHope that you spend your days
But they all add up
And when that sun goes down
Hope you raise your cup
I wish that I could witness
All your joy and all your pain
But until my moment comes
I’ll sayI, I did it all
I, I did it all
I owned every second
That this world could give
I saw so many places
And things that I did
With every broken bone
I swear I livedWith every broken bone
I swear I lived
With every broken bone
I swear I livedI, I did it all
I, I did it all
I owned every second
That this world could give
I saw so many places
And things that I did girl
With every broken bone
I swear I lived
MaidaPineda.Copyright2015.
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