Every year, I find myself struggling to keep my Easter joy alive for the entire season. For some reason, it’s easier for me to sustain my Lenten observances for forty days than it is for me to celebrate Easter for fifty.
If this sounds familiar to you, first, know that you’re not alone in the struggle, and second, here’s something that might help us both: a Spotify playlist to help you enter into the joy of the season through music, which is a key component of both the Church’s liturgical life and of daily life (remembering of course that the liturgical life is meant to overflow into and transform daily life).
This music has been chosen for its ability to remind us that Christ is alive forever, that the darkness has been conquered, that “the sufferings of this present life are as nothing compared with the glory about to be revealed to us” (Rom 8:18, NRSV), and that “if we have been united with [Jesus Christ] in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Rom 6:5, NRSV).
The playlist includes festive liturgical music, containing both well-known and hidden gems of the Easter season and its concluding feasts of Ascension and Pentecost, as well as more secular/popular songs that are shot through with images and lyrics that speak of resurrection, songs that turn our gaze toward the eternal in the midst of the day-to-day.
Hopefully these songs will help us all to sustain our joy in the risen Christ throughout the next fifty days. Christ is risen! Alleluia!
Featured image by Tomasz Tuszko; CC-BY-NC-ND-2.0
