I love violets. I love their delicate smell, their regal beauty against the grass, their unexpectedness. I’ve been looking hard for them and the other day I found them.

I read recently that in some Christian traditions, “the alleluia is not sung during Lent.” Alleluia or Hallelujah means praise the Lord. During Lent, some people refrain from praise in order to lament and repent. The idea – like every other kind of fasting – is that you store up the longing to praise and you burst forth in splendor-filled worship on Easter Sunday morning.

I don’t know about you but that’s not quite where I am at today.

Holy Week is always such a whiplash week – Palm Sunday cheers, Maundy Thursday feasting and then betrayal, then the crucifixion, the silence of Saturday and then the beautiful triumphant surprise of Easter morning. It’s a roller coaster of a week.

Last Sunday, I biked to a garden not far from me and I thought about that idea of not singing the alleluias, and I put on the singer we all think of when we think hallelujah, and I sang along with Saint Leonard, only I left out every single Hallelujah. And that’s where I am at this Easter: my garden is not in full bloom but if you look, you can find violets, impossibly blooming. My Hallelujah today is cold and very broken but it is still a hallelujah. I’m wearing today a dress for the occasion. It’s the dress my daughter said is perfect if you have a funeral at 5 and a fiesta at 7 – it’s black but it has an insert in the skirt that has all the colours of the rainbow pleated inside, ready to burst open.

My runner kid yesterday told me the secret of getting through that last 100 metres: you have to turn your brain off and focus on putting one foot in front of the other, staying in your body. It strikes me that that is so very Easter, the returning of Jesus to his body, to eat, to be touched, to walk with friends, to break bread. I think too of the two movies I’ve seen this weekend (Shawshank Redemption and Of Gods and Men): in both movies, there’s the broadcasting of music leading to stillness and near ecstasy. So, that’s Easter Week, the cold and broken hallelujah, inhabiting the body by looking for those violets, that music, that turkey, those chocolate eggs, the funeral/fiesta dress, those kind masks we wear that tell the truth of our bodies, their frailty and beauty and the hope of resurrection.