Connecticut Christians find hope in Easter
Resurrection story serves as a source of comfort amid ongoing pandemic
Last April, just as the coronavirus crisis was beginning its devastating march through the state, the Rev. James Sullivan stood in the empty sanctuary of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Waterbury and delivered his Easter message to a camera.
It didn’t feel right to mark such a sacred day in isolation.
“To preach in a church with no one in it, on Easter, was a painful experience,” Sullivan recalled. “As Catholics, we believe in the Eucharist, that we actually receive the blood and body of Christ at Holy Communion. Sure, you can watch a service on a livestream, but it’s just not the same.”
This year on Easter Sunday, the Basilica will be at least partially full: Connecticut houses of worship are permitted to remain open with no limits on capacity, as long as masks are worn and people are able to remain at least 6 feet apart.
With the arrival of vaccines, clergy around the state are expressing hope that this will be the final
Easter of livestreams, empty pews and parking lot services. But with new, more contagious coronavirus variants taking hold and Connecticut’s test positivity rate creeping up to its highest levels since early February, some members of the clergy remain wary.
“Last year was just frantic,” said the Rev. Patrick Collins, the senior pastor of the First Congregational Church in Greenwich. “There was so much that was unknown, and there was a lot of fear. This year ... there’s a real desire to return to the way things were but realizing even that’s a long way off.”
Still, Collins added, “just being able to see some semblance of hope on the horizon is a different feeling.”
The horrific first wave of coronavirus cases hit the Northeast hard last spring; by April 12 — Easter Sunday — 554 state residents had died of COVID-19 complications. (As of Friday, the state had lost 7,904 people.)
Two of those early deaths were members of Spottswood A.M.E. Zion Church in New Britain.
“That was a real gut check as to the realities we were facing,” recalled the Rev. Samuel C. Blanks, pastor of the historic New Britain congregation. “We were still losing members to death during that period of time.”
Spottswood celebrated Easter remotely last year and will do so
again on Sunday. “Just me in front of a camera,” Blanks said.
For him, and the 325 members of his church community, technology does not adequately capture the essence of Christianity’s holiest day. “Having only me talk to a screen misses a lot of our tradition,” Blanks said. “We are this call and response type church. For me to not hear anyone else say ‘amen’ ... well, it just wasn’t the same.”
Yet the story of Jesus’ suffering, death and rebirth resonates especially strongly with many Christians this year, said Sullivan, the Roman Catholic priest from Waterbury.
“At Easter we celebrate the death and resurrection of our savior,” Sullivan said “We believe as Christians God can work through struggles and evil, and good can come of it.”
The pain of the past year, Sullivan said, “will not lead to despair, but to resurrection in our spiritual loves ... to a deeper love of God and neighbor.”
Collins, the minister from Greenwich, said Holy Week brings a sense of hope every year. But this year, the sense of bearing witness to suffering and the promise of rebirth provides a powerful lesson to parishioners weary of the isolation and heartache brought on by the pandemic.
“We are a resurrection people, and we believe in that hope of a new day and a new beginning,” Collins said. “But a lot of times we forget about the pain it takes
to get there.”
He has erected a visual reminder on the church lawn: thousands of tiny white flags, each symbolizing a life lost to COVID19. “It’s a visual reminder ... that the hope that we now feel has come at a significant cost, a huge human toll and it’s beyond the physical — all year long people were in isolation and were alone when they passed away and families weren’t able to grieve.”
The powerful parallels between the coronavirus crisis and Jesus’ death and resurrection will be the focus of Blanks’ Easter sermon. “I told my wife, this isn’t a year that I just go back to my file cabinet and pull an Easter message and dust it off and tell a story,” he said.
Instead, Blanks plans to remember the women of faith who witnessed Jesus’ death. The following day, they went to his tomb, but, as conveyed in the Bible, they found that it was empty.
“He’s not there. Where did he go?” Blanks said. “He got up as he said he would, of course.”
The women expected death and suffering but found hope, Blanks said. “That’s what I’ll be sharing with the congregation this year. Although it’s been a very dark, desperate, desolate situation that we’ve been in, if you can just have the courage to look inside the tomb, you will be able to see ... there is hope.”