On Easter Monday, a good number of us gathered at a nearby lake for our traditional Easter Monday outing, a day of rest and leisure after the long season of Lent and the intense liturgies of the Triduum. One of the games we enjoyed at the lake was a fairly silly one characterized by playful stunts and humorous assignments. One Sister drew a game card that instructed her to say everything twice say everything twice for the duration of the game the duration of the game. She gamely did so did so.
As she repeated herself again and again, I thought: What a great assignment for Easter, this season of abounding abundance and overflowing life and profusion upon profusion of blossoms and blooms and joyous repetitions of all kinds. The air is filled with repetition: an armada of cherry blossoms sailing with the wind, bird song following bird song, and ‘alleluias’ that float freely – and repeatedly – from our open chapel windows.
During these liturgies of the Octave of Easter we encounter alleluias and more alleluias with every hymn and every antiphon and every turn of the page. Every liturgy concludes with a ‘double alleluia.’ Singing our way through all these alleluia’s is like running through a meadow abloom with joy and tripping over exuberance with every step.
This – the season of ‘double alleluias’ – is the perfect season to say it again say it again. And like a field of flowers in bloom, our ‘saying it again’ is never redundant. It is resplendent with praise. So let us say it again:
Christ is risen! Alleluia, Alleluia! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia, Alleluia!