And yet, we are often disappointed, even on Easter, even when we are offered the promise of eternal life and salvation. We look at prayers unanswered (at least according to our standards) and a world breaking under the strain of division and human suffering, and we struggle to find joy, even when our faith tells us not to be afraid, that nothing on this earth, no matter how awful, can keep us away from what God has promised.

Wherever you find yourself today, whatever your problems and struggles, there is reason to rejoice. Jesus is not dead; he is alive. The cross was not a defeat for him, and it will not be a defeat for us. We do not always understand Jesus’ ways, and like those early disciples, we may stare at the empty tomb — or at some challenge in our own life or the larger world — and wonder, “How can this be?” But Jesus doesn’t ask us to understand; he asks us to trust that things are unfolding just as he told us they would.

If you are struggling to find Easter joy this season, imagine you are Mary Magdalene, bereft after finding the tomb empty. Upon encountering a man whom she does not recognize at first, she is called by name and realizes she is speaking to the resurrected Jesus. He tells her not to be afraid and to go and preach the good news of his resurrection to the other disciples. Her fear disappears in that moment, and she boldly proclaims: “I have seen the Lord.” We, too, are called by name.

In his beautiful book, “Life of the Beloved,” theologian Henri J.M. Nouwen writes, “What I most want to say is that when the totality of our daily lives is lived ‘from above,’ that is, as the Beloved sent into the world, then everyone we meet and everything that happens to us becomes a unique opportunity to choose for the life that cannot be conquered by death. Thus, both joy and suffering become part of the way to our spiritual fulfillment.”

Our lives will always be a mixture of both dark and light, happiness and sadness, but always hope, and possibly even joy in the face of struggle, if we follow Mary Magdalene’s example of complete trust.

As you move through this Easter season, pay attention to physical signs and symbols around you at Mass — the Paschal candle flickering, the powerful fragrance of lilies in bloom, the music bursting with Alleluias, the holy water cool against your skin, a shower of blessings in the most literal sense. It’s beautiful how we use physical things to help us bridge the distance to God, as though we are so hungry to get closer, we pull out all the stops. If only we could keep that fire of love going year-round. The Church gives us a running start by offering us the beautiful 50-day season of Easter. Soak it up. Let it feed your soul and animate the inner joy that is your spiritual birthright. After all, he is risen. Run and tell the others!

This column originally appeared in the April 9, 2025, issue of The Evangelist.

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In today’s Gospel, we are reminded that Mary of Magdala was the first to witness the Risen Lord, and the first to preach the Good News of the Resurrection. In Mary Magdalene we see a woman who never ran, never wavered; who stood at the foot of the cross when all but one of the Apostles were nowhere to be found; who stood at the tomb when the Apostles thought there was no reason to hope; who stood before the Apostles and preached the impossible to a group of men who thought she was just an emotional woman having a hallucination.

In Mary Magdalene we see utter love and devotion in the face of utter doubt and betrayal; we see bold and wild faith in the face of cowering fear and logic. Mary of Magdala is so often overlooked or, worse, derided and yet she went on to become the Apostles to the Apostles, preaching the Good News to those who would go on to preach it to others. That is a true disciple. Would the Good News ever have made it to the rest of the world if not for this woman of courage and conviction?

We pray today for the kind of bold and wild faith that will move our hearts to act even when our heads tell us to fear. We pray for the kind devotion and love that will transforms our lives from the inside out and inspire us to preach with our very lives even if we cannot preach with our words. We pray to recognize Jesus standing before us in the garden of our lives.

When we are wavering, when we are doubting, when we want to weep, let us look to Mary Magdalene for the strength to hold firm and to speak truth.

St. Mary Magdalene, pray for us. And may the Risen Lord fill us with new life and light to sustain us in the days and months ahead.

The Lord is Risen, alleluia, alleluia.

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Soundtrack: These days I toggle back and forth between Taylor Swift’s latest albums (Folklore and Evermore), the yoga class playlists I create on Spotify — you can follow my Spotify channel HERE — and my latest Audible purchase, in this case Beauty: The Invisible Embrace by Irish poet John O’Donohue. I have been totally enthralled with the gorgeous readings of poets O’Donohue and David Whyte. My previous Audible listen had been Being Ram Dass, which was pretty good although I will admit that I made it through “only” 15 of the 18 hours. I had to surrender at that point.

Bookshelf: I just finished Dusk Night Dawn: On Revival and Courage by Anne Lamott, which at times made me laugh out loud and at other times made me long for the Anne Lamott whose writing I fell in love with years ago. This one felt a little rushed, like she needed to get a COVID-related book out there before it was too late. I would have preferred a more thoughtful book that did not need to respond to COVID but responded instead to the human condition that exists with or without a pandemic. Maybe I was just cranky when I read it. Still worth your time, for sure, especially if you are a Lamott fan. I guess I just expect more from one of my writing heroes. I am currently reading a bunch of yoga-related books, including Radiant Rest: Yoga Nidra for Deep Relaxation and Awakened Clarity by Tracee Stanley. This is a book that’s as beautiful to look at and hold as it is to read. And, of course, I’ve been reading along with my own book of Lenten reflections, Not By Bread Alone. It’s always interesting to me to see what I wrote more than a year ago and how it applies to life today.

Menu: We opted to do a big Palm Sunday dinner yesterday since ham is not something our girls will eat — one vegetarian and one who eats only poultry. It was nice to set the dining room table on a non-holiday and break out the good china. Alongside our ham was homemade mac and cheese and roasted asparagus. We’ll be doing chicken/tofu parm and pasta for Easter dinner, so that’s something delicious to look forward to. Dennis has been cooking up lots of amazing meals lately — Thai chicken, pork chops pizzaiola, turkey dinners on random weekends. We’ve been eating far too well over here, and the scale shows it.

Viewfinder: I’m loving the signs of spring outside my window and the funny furry friends who keep us company every day. I remember at this time last year how consumed I was with the birds at the feeder and the bright green buds pushing up through the earth. Every single thing felt like a sign of hope in the midst of fear. This year it feels like a sign of hope that we have made it through the worst of the pandemic. I am already getting out onto our deck every time the temps rise and the sun comes out, sipping my coffee or wine (depending on the hour) and listening to the persistent cardinals high up in the trees calling to one another and the less showy but still delightful sparrows and juncos and robins pecking around near the feeder. Life is good. Here are a few shots:

Datebook: The big news at our house is that four out of five Pousts have received our first vaccines, all last week in four different locations. It felt like a great sigh of relief, and I can’t wait until we can get our second round. Easter is just a few days away, so that will be a day to celebrate, especially since we will see Olivia this week for the first time in months. I’ll be at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Albany on Easter morning for Mass with Bishop Scharfenberger at 11 a.m. Join us if you’re in town! And a few weeks down the road is Chiara’s Confirmation. Since she has chosen my dad as her sponsor (and Helena as her name in honor of my paternal grandmother) I’m hoping my dad and stepmom will be able to visit. We have not seen them since Christmas 2019, which is just crazy. Can’t wait to be together again.

GPS: Other than my excursion up to South Glens Falls to get my vaccine, my beautiful “lava-orange” Sante Fe doesn’t get much of a workout. I head into the office three days a week now and over to Jai Yoga School several times a week to teach or take classes. That’s pretty much the confines of my world at this point. Oh, and physical therapy for a back issue, although I hope that will wrap up this week. Essentially I don’t need a GPS and rarely drive more than six miles at a clip. I’m hoping that as the weather improves and our vaccines kick in that will change. Maybe we’ll even get to go on a vacation this summer, although that’s still a long shot. Here’s hoping, for all of us.

Have a peaceful and prayerful Holy Week. Spend some time in silence in the presence of God, even if you can’t get to a church due to COVID concerns. Just make some time to be present to this special time in our Church year. If you’d like a little Holy Week inspiration, check out this beautiful video message from Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz Weber:

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A post shared by Nadia Bolz-Weber (@sarcasticlutheran)

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Sometimes I hop on Facebook and I see my book looking back at me from someone else’s page. My heart swells with gratitude. Here are two from just this week, one from a nearby parish and one from a local deacon.

We have a little more than two weeks left before we wrap up this journey. Thanks again to those who are reading and praying with me day by day. I am in the final stages of proofing the book of reflections for Lent 2021, so keep an eye out for Not By Bread Alone, which will be out in the late fall, although the pre-order link is already up on the Liturgical Press website.

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From my chair, I can see most of our backyard. A rabbit munches on the tender shoots of violets pushing through the dirt in the flowerbed. A squirrel holds a prized acorn, dug up from its hiding place. Two goldfinches sit on the birdfeeder, feasting on black oil sunflower seeds, while a hopeful chipmunk waits below for the scraps. A pair of cardinals flits from one tree to another in such a playful way that it’s hard not to smile despite the relentlessness of our coronavirus isolation.

And each day, from the brown earth and the barren tree limbs, emerge signs of life, neon green, reaching for sunlight, growing at breakneck speed. I stare out the window and marvel that I’ve never noticed how much the daylilies grow in just 24 hours. Now, when many of those hours are spent within view of them, I can see their growth bit by bit, and it has transformed me. I now “get” spring. Before spring just seemed like something we had to pass through to get to the good stuff: summer and fall. Submerged now in every movement and moment of spring from my ringside seat, I am basking in the unbelievable beauty and hopefulness of a season that beckons us to stop doubting, stop fearing, stop hiding and bloom for goodness sake.

Even in the rain, and there has been a lot of it lately, a robin redbreast pecked at the ground and seemed unfazed by the drops coming down. I stood at the window and actually sang a song from my children’s preschool about how the robin in the rain is “such a saucy fellow.” It’s come to this. I’m singing rhymes about robins. Even in the wind, a hearty goldfinch clung to the feeder as it tilted sideways in a powerful gust, eating as though nothing out of the ordinary was happening. He leaned into the breeze and carried on.

Day by day, as I soaked in the scenes outside my window, I kept coming back to Scripture: “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” (Matthew 6:26)

If the rest of creation can return each spring, ready to take on a new cycle of life, a new stretch of uncertainty in a fickle world, with cats prowling around the feeder and suburban foxes lurking at night, shouldn’t we, too, screw up our courage and embrace the wind, the rain, the monsters under our bed, the demons in our head and lean into what life sends us?

“Be not afraid” Scripture tells us over and over, but, truth be told, we are often afraid, even if we don’t say it out loud. God asks us to trust, even when the world doesn’t make sense; to hope, even when we have every reason to despair. We are Easter people, and it is still the Easter season — a season of miracles, rebirth, resurrection and life. Look outside your window. Find one thing that sparks hope in your spirit and meditate on it. Allow it to transform your perspective and in the process transform your soul.

This column originally appeared in the May 7, 2020, issue of Catholic New York.

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You can get the eBook version for only 99 cents on Amazon right now. Just click HERE and you can have this book in your hands in less than a minute. An offer you can’t refuse!

If you happen to live close enough to walk or drive past my actual house, I have free copies available on my front porch. Just stop by and take one. Not the best sales approach, but it’s more important to me that people read these reflections than worry about sales.

If you want the hard copy version of the book and can’t get to my house, you can order from Amazon or from Liturgical Press, although due to the COVID-19 work shut downs, I believe shipping has become slowed down or even unavailable. Which makes me really sad, but this is life in the age of a pandemic.

Of course, if you can’t get the book by Easter, these reflections are fairly evergreen, so feel free to order and then start using it day by day for 50 days once you have it in hand.

Thank you to all those who ordered their copies early, when I originally posted about this. I’m so grateful for your support. Let me know how you like the book.

Peace and blessings during this difficult time. Safe safe. Stay healthy. Stay home.

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I can tell you that from my perspective — as a writer and a pray-er — this particular book of reflections was a real gift. We tend to focus so intently on Lent each year and then, when Easter arrives, our spiritual focus dissipates. This book gives us a chance to center on the readings of the Easter season, mainly from the Acts of the Apostles, and to dwell on stories that may not be as familiar or are at the very least stories we have not spent a lot of time with in quiet prayer.

The great news is that this book is so reasonably priced they’re practically giving it away. It’s only $2 per copy for the pocket-size version. If you prefer or need large print, that’s only $5.95. It’s also available in Spanish and as an eBook. AND, if you order in bulk, the price is chopped in half. For orders of 50 copies or more, the books are only $1 each. This is perfect for parishes, retreat centers, or folks who want to donate a batch to a program or parish.

You can order directly from Liturgical Press by clicking HERE.

Amazon seems to be out of stock but I’m hoping that status will change soon, so you can check there as well. But Liturgical Press is your best bet at this point.

Here’s a “blurb” for my previous reflection books from Liturgical Press:

“Mary DeTurris Poust has a peculiar gift for finding the common experiences with which we can all identify and rendering them into profound meditations that are both consoling and instructive…” — Elizabeth Scalia, author of Strange Gods: Unmasking Idols in Everyday Life

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GPS: Once we dropped the girls off at grandma’s house, we headed to the Marriott at 49th and Lex, where we scored an amazing 30th-floor room with a slim view (see photo above) for only $3 thanks to Dennis’ reward points. Great room, great location. From there we took the train down to Greenwich Village, one of our favorite haunts from our dating days. We shopped, strolled through Washington Park, had cocktails (a Manhattan and a French 75) at the Malt House, and wandered into St. Anthony of Padua Church on Houston and Sullivan streets just as the choir was warming up for the Easter Vigil. Then we headed to Villa Mosconi, our all-time favorite Village restaurant, for an amazing dinner, which brings us to our next section of this post…

Menu: You know the food is good when I forget to take photos. We had an appetizer of carciofi (artichokes) that was out of this world, followed by zuppa di pesce (Dennis) and fettucini verdi alla bolognese (me), all washed down with a carafe of Chianti. If you get the chance, go to this wonderful spot on MacDougal Street, where the pasta is all homemade and everything is about as authentic as it can get this side of the ocean. Here’s the zuppa di pesce:

Viewfinder: Some other shots from our weekend…

A window of St. Anthony’s shipwreck off the coast of Sicily, from St. Anthony of Padua Church in Soho:

My steampunk bracelet, a gift from Dennis from one of my favorite Village shopping spots. (I also scored two dresses — only $10 each — at the same market and a beautiful red leather bag from another Village shop.) “Sculpture on your wrist,” that’s how the salesman/artisan described the bracelet below, which caught my eye as soon as I walked into his stall of goodies. The warped antique watch face is supposed to be reminiscent of Dali’s “The Persistence of Memory,” with its melting clocks. The blue piece is for the earth, and the middle piece with the gear in between is the moon, or so he said. True or not, I loved the story and the bracelet.

Dining at Villa Mosconi:

On Easter morning, we grabbed delicious New York bagels at Zucker’s Bagels & Smoked Fish before heading to St. Patrick’s Cathedral for Mass with Cardinal Dolan. Although the altar is still covered in scaffolding, you can see in the photo how beautiful the restored portions of the cathedral look. It’s breathtaking, as is the exterior.

We capped off our morning, before heading to Dennis’ mom’s apartment for Easter dinner, with a double cappuccino. Check out that foamy artwork:

Soundtrack: So many songs could fit this past weekend, from Handel’s Messiah, which the choir was singing as we recessed out of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, to John Lennon’s Imagine, which a street artist was performing on the subway platform as we waited for the E train. But this is what popped into my head just now when I tried to sum up this weekend with a song, only we took a Chrysler minivan rather than a Greyhound bus down that Hudson River line.

https://youtu.be/UFlsXgw_SFE

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