Easter

Emerald grass, thick and lush. Trees in bridal gowns. Spring flowers peeping out under a warm, golden sun. Nature is waking up after a long winter sleep. It's Resurrection time.

I attended the Easter Mass at the jail this year. Fifty-four inmates filed in under the watchful eyes of the guards who stood ready to escort out anyone who might give a gang signal. Fifty-four is a large number for a Catholic Mass from the 1,400 prisoners at the jail. All of us volunteers were grateful for that.

The priest heard confessions standing up at the back of the room while the rest of us prayed the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. The Mass then proceeded in English and Spanish with much joyful music. One of the guitarists prepared a touching song about Peter's denial of Christ and his decision to seek forgiveness. I found the homily unforgettable. The priest emphasized that we have to die before we can live.

On the following Friday we discussed that theme during the Catholic Men's Bible Study. At first, some of them thought that "dying" referred to physical death, and the bible passages didn't make sense to them. "A seed falling into the ground remains itself alone, but, dying, it brings forth much fruit." One of them asked, "How can a dead seed produce fruit?" When a seed sprouts it isn't a dead seed, but, rather, the seed has changed into a young plant. The "dying" is all about leaving behind a previous stage of growth so that a new stage can begin. It's all about maturation.

Students need to leave preschool imagination behind and start responding to the real world where some answers are right, and other answers are wrong; where someone wins a game, and someone loses; where the response has to match the question, not just be something remembered from the past. Older students have to leave behind memorization of details for discerning patterns and connecting them with other patterns. As a student grows independence grows too. Waiting for a teacher to correct errors works well enough for younger students, but leads to low test scores for older students. Maturity means discovering and analyzing errors on daily assignments before the test.

For those of us who have a tendency to be hot tempered, "dying" means acting to resolve conflicts, rather than just reacting in a knee-jerk fashion to whatever is happening. Maturity means more planning and less procrastinating, more choices of health over immediate pleasure, more honest sharing and listening in place of criticizing other people.

The dying is very difficult, but resurrection joy makes the pain worthwhile. For those who keep on growing Easter never ends.

Mary Sue Laing, M.Ed.
Resource Teacher, St. Ambrose School
newskill7@msn.com

by Mary Sue Laing, M. Ed., New Skill, Inc. Academic Tutor