Yale Daily News

For the first time since the start of the pandemic, Christian organizations on campus are able to celebrate the Sacred Paschal Triduum services — for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday — in person.

Easter Sunday, April 17, marks the end of Holy Week celebrations. Easter, or Resurrection Sunday, is a holiday celebrated by Christians marking the end of the 40-day period of Lent, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

“My favorite part of Easter Sunday is the sense of renewal that comes to us on this day each year,” said Katie Painter ’23, chair of the Act Committee at St. Thomas More Catholic Chapel and Center at Yale. “As we emerge from our Lenten journeys and hear in Scripture about the risen Christ, the flowers are blooming again and the birds are singing outside.”

This year, Senior Associate Rev. Ian Oliver will lead the Easter Service in Battell Chapel. After the morning service, congregants are invited to join Oliver at his home in Hamden for a home-cooked brunch.

Oliver is planning each service this year with music rehearsals for the choir and organists, arranging students to help lead the services, writing sermons and cooking brunch, he said. This year has been “challenging,” Oliver said, because they haven’t had to do such preparations since 2019. In addition, they are baptizing students at this year’s service.

“[The best part of Easter Sunday is] the very beginning of the Sunday morning service as the big pipe organ and trumpets begin the hymn ‘Jesus Christ Is Risen Today’ and everyone sings,” Oliver said. “We’ve only been allowed to have congregational singing for the last few weeks, so this year will be very special.”

According to University Chaplain Sharon Kugler, she does everything she can “to make sure that all [of Yale’s] religious and spiritual communities can practice their faiths and celebrate their holidays and sacred observances.” 

This April is a busy month for the University’s religious calendar as the holy month of Ramadan is occurring and this Friday is also the start of Passover for the Jewish community. Additionally, on Tuesday night, the Hindu Chaplain will lead students in a Ram Navami and Hanuman Jayanti Puja in the Hindu prayer space. Eastern Orthodox Easter, also known as Pascha, uses a different calendar and will fall on April 24 this year.

“It is truly a holy month,” Kugler said. 

Kugler emphasized that, just as Easter is important at Yale, so are all the other religious observances taking place during the month of April. 

As this week is Holy Week, Kugler has tried “to touch base and drop into as many events as possible,” she said. The Chaplain’s office, in coordination with Christian chaplains and ministers, has organized events occurring all throughout Holy Week.

One such event is a book talk with Deesha Philyaw, the author of “The Secret Lives of Church Ladies,” next Monday. St. Thomas More, the Catholic Center, the Episcopal Church at Yale and the Black Church at Yale are also all hosting events throughout Holy Week and on Easter Sunday. 

St. Thomas More specifically will be hosting Stations of the Cross in the chapel at 3 p.m. on Good Friday and Easter Mass at 10 a.m. and 12 p.m. on Sunday.

Marisol Carty ’23, who is an Arts editor for the News, said that one of her favorite events at St. Thomas More was called Lent 101.

“Chaplain Father Ryan Lerner spoke about the true purposes of Lent and we heard from a couple students about what their plans were for Lent,” Carty said.

Although Painter said that Yale does not adjust the academic schedule for the Holy Week’s celebrations, she feels there is still a space for those celebrating to “take a step back” from their daily routines and observe the sacred times together.

Easter Sunday last year could not be celebrated fully in-person due to pandemic restrictions, but Painter said that she still felt a sense of “community.” Painter added that her favorite memory of Easter at Yale is when she and a small group of others met outside for Easter brunch and prayed the Rosary together.

“It was so uplifting for us to come together in fellowship, join our voices in prayer and celebrate the fact that, despite the challenging circumstances, we would continue to draw on the support of our campus ministry and share the joys of the Easter season in whatever way we could,” Painter said.

Battell Chapel is located at 400 College St.