By: Sister Laetitia Therese, O.C.D.
Having journeyed through the sacred days of the Triduum and now in the glorious Easter Season, my attention has been most poignantly drawn to the beauty of the liturgy. One theme I have been praying much with is “the bells.” I find it so striking that on Holy Thursday we ring the bells jubilantly during the Gloria. During Lent we refrain from singing the Gloria, but on Holy Thursday we pick it up again to express our joyful worship of God and gratitude for the gifts of the institution of the Sacraments of Holy Orders and the Holy Eucharist and to anticipate the gift of our salvation as Our Lord Jesus lives through the events of the Paschal Mystery: His Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension. During the Gloria, we ring multiple sets of bells, but once they cease ringing, we do not hear them again until the Gloria at the Easter Vigil. The silence and solemnity of the missing bells is equally profound as we enter more fully into the experience of Our Lord’s Passion. This is such a moving experience for me because I find it very symbolic of the Christian life. We are called to be joyful and rejoice in this world (the ringing of the bells). However, the truth is that evil does exist and we do not deny that- what was done to Jesus was the gravest evil ever committed (the silence of the bells). Yet, Jesus has triumphed over sin and death through His unconditional love in the face of evil and suffering (the ringing of bells again). So, we ring the bells with great hope and promise on Holy Thursday evening: though the bells be silenced for a time, the bells will ring again. And when we ring them at the Easter Vigil, we rejoice in the fulfillment of the promise- the bells have indeed begun to ring again. And the ringing of the bells at the Easter Vigil is another promise that because of Our Lord’s victory, we may one day hear them ringing again in the eternal joy and triumph of Heaven.