Easter is meant to be a joyous time of celebration after the somber season of Lent. But what if, for you, Easter is a time of grief? For our latest monthly Enkindle rosary, we had the opportunity to sit down with Fr. Charles Samson, professor at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary and priest of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, and talk about that challenge.

“I love that we’re given an octave for the Easter season,” Fr. Samson reflected. “The Church realizes that it’s so momentous of an occasion that we need a little extra time to stop, pause, and suspend it in front of our minds and souls…I think what the Church wants us to do – what it invites us to do – is not run too fast to the appearances of Jesus at Easter. The Church wants us to linger at the empty tomb.”

Although we think of the empty tomb as a place of joy, it would have initially been a place of pain and confusion for the followers of Christ, “All the disciples…had was the empty tomb and no answers. All they saw was emptiness, and they wondered, ‘What is the meaning of this?’”

The emptiness of the tomb often may call to mind something else for couples facing infertility – an empty womb. Fr. Samson offered a different perspective, “What I’ve heard from some friends and couples who have undergone infertility, or miscarriage, or loss in some way…[is that] they identify the image of the empty tomb – with its hiddenness, but especially with its emptiness –  with the womb. But it seems like the early Christians identified it with the heart because the tomb received Jesus into the heart of the earth….it received Him.”

This pivot can help infertile couples contemplate their unique receptivity to Christ, “Think of the empty tomb as an image of the heart that is waiting to receive Jesus – into your life, into your family, into your vocation.” In this, the emptiness is replaced with openness.

In some ways, those who are facing infertility – and therefore, knowing suffering in an intimate way – are able to pray even more fruitfully than those who are not suffering. Fr. Samson recommended those facing the suffering of infertility pray with the Easter Sequence. “The first half of it just…describes death and resurrection. But then the second half takes the words of Mary Magdalene, and she’s the one who actually speaks through it….my favorite line from the whole Easter season [is in the sequence], [there is a] full stop, and then a big, dramatic one-liner, ‘Christ, my hope, has arisen.’ In a way that someone with only Mary’s zeal and zest could say… Something of the conviction of life after death – we’ve got to linger over that, especially if you’re still in the thick of the suffering. Take that sequence, and think about Mary Magdalene, and about how she was just totally transformed into a trust and a calm in Christ’s presence (when she knew he was there.”

In our suffering and grief this Easter season, we are called to find the same hope that Mary Magdalene did.

For the full interview with Fr. Samson, click here. Join us at 7:30 pm on the first Monday of every month for the Enkindle Rosary for Infertility.