This Easter Sunday, the Rev. Tim Kesicki, the head of the Jesuit order in North America, will officiate a Mass around his family’s dining room table.
The ceremony will include only Kesicki, his parents and husband in their house in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. However, it will not always be a silent Mass.
“During the homily, it isn’t unusual for my mother to provide remarks,” Kesicki stated, laughing. “It is very welcome, obviously.”
Kesicki, who resides in Washington, DC, has celebrated Mass with his family before, a benefit of being an ordained Catholic priest.
However, for most Christians, Easter this season will be radically different: a home-bound, shelter-in-place sacred moment. No Easter parades, no egg searches, no church. Because there’s been Lent, there is a solemness in the atmosphere.
It will not escape Christians they’re celebrating Jesus’ resurrection at a time of death and illness.
Over 1.5 million individuals around the globe have been infected with the book coronavirus, and more than 100,000 have died, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The security damage may appear quite as stunning. Over 16 million Americans were out of jobs in only the past 3 weeks.
The pandemic has drained St. Peter’s Square of all pilgrims, silenced the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and shuttered the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the site of their first Easter 2 millennia past.
Sanctuaries throughout the Earth, normally full of Easter lilies and households wearing spring pastels and vacation hats, sit this Sunday.