Easter Joy

The season of Lent is over, and now…
Now what?
Christ is risen. Now begins our new life in Christ.
Yes, I’ve been a Christian for over 20 years, but am I really? Lent was to put away the old self, Easter is to put on the new person, to be clothed in Christ — to be permeated with Christ. To be like Christ.
Am I?
Watching and participating in The Stations of the Cross with Pope Leo XIV on Good Friday, I was convicted, like a wrenching in my heart when I realized how many times I have failed in love, humility, generosity, purity of heart, poverty of spirit, mercy etc. Some reading this may say, “Don’t be so hard on yourself.” But really? Why not? What was the point of Lent — what was the point of Christ’s Passion, of His very existence — if something in me doesn’t change, if I don’t strive to take up my own cross and follow after Him?
During this Lenten season, for the first time in my life, I experienced a desire to be holy, to be a saint. Oh yes, I have wanted to be a better person, wanted to be a better Christian, but this is different. You see, the emphasis had always been on being better. Not on being different.
Sure, I’ve been different than other people for as long as I remember, different because of my physical inabilities due to my progressive motor neuron disease, different because of the way I look due to my severe scoliosis, different in the way that I live because of my dependency on others for survival. But the difference that I’m talking about is a different kind of different. It’s a difference that makes no difference between people with abilities or disabilities, no difference between people with wealth or poverty, worldly struggle or worldly success. This difference is not worldly. It’s other.
I want to be other than. I want to truly live the profound depths of Christian life. I don’t want to be seen as saintly — the very thought makes me want to give up the quest and just live like everybody else. Please don’t place me on a pedestal. I’m simply trying to describe the moment that we are all given, but we probably far too often don’t recognize. Even if I have recognized it this time, that doesn’t mean that I will actually do anything with it. But it’s a start. It’s a beginning. Please God, let it be a beginning of something that continues.
My main hesitation is that I don’t really want to live the way so many Saints have lived: with suffering. Yeah, yeah, I know, I have a debilitating disease, blah, blah, blah. But that’s nothing compared to what some of the Saints have gone through. And… Well… I really don’t like suffering. I don’t want to grieve. I don’t want to be tested. And yet…
Praying that there is a kind and gentle, merciful way to live a holy life — not just outside, with these words that I write, but deep, profoundly deep within.

© 2026 Christina Chase

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Feature Photo by Hulda Gilca on Unsplash