Per Christum Catholic Blog

I’ve had four days to try and reflect on this threshold my wife and I were carried across as we finished our Christian initiation at the Easter vigil and began what I pray will be an eternity of full communion with the Lord Jesus Christ and his Church.

The sentence I’ve been using to describe my experience of the vigil is “It’s like getting ran over by a spiritual dump-truck, but in a good way.” My wife, I think, does a better job when she says it was like exhaling after holding her breath since last August.

Beyond those descriptions, I kind of run out of words other than these two: peace and home.

I would, however, like to share what I believe was a gift God sent me during this time. Something that happened after each sacrament I received.

On the Wednesday before the vigil, I made my first confession. After I had received absolution and gone joyfully to one of the pews to pray, a snippet of scripture from chapter 20 of the Gospel of St. John containing a promise Christ made to his Apostles echoed in my ear:

Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven…

The night of vigil was wonderful. Everything was so pregnant with the symbolism of the Resurrection of Jesus. The ancient hymns, prayers and traditions really hammered home that we were hitching our car to the train that the Apostles, Fathers and other Saints were riding.

There were tears of joy when Father Sexton, on behalf of the Church, welcomed me and my wife into full-communion. There was a sense of relief and peace when he annointed my head with the Holy Chrism and the Holy Spirit sealed me under the name “Justin Martyr.” When I returned to my pew to prepare for the Liturgy of the Eucharist, two more bits of Scripture floated up from my memory (this time from chapter 14 of St. John and chapter 28 of St. Matthew ):

I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor…I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you…I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

I found my voice shaky in the responses and songs that lead up to Communion. The Consecration had always been the highest point of the Mass for me, but this one was even more meaningful because I knew I would be invited to partake of its fruit.

When I finally received Our Lord sacramentally, it was more like the still, small voice than the whirlwind, earthquake or fire. When I returned to my pew to kneel and pray a prayer of thanksgiving (which is what Eucharist means after all,) the following from the sixth chapter of the St. John came to mind:

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.

That’s about it. I was given a beautiful, Christ-centered, scripture saturated reception into the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. I’d have to say that, by far, this was our best Easter ever.

Christ is risen!