Pascual, like any rabbit, enjoys hopping and eating
vegetables, but he is not any rabbit. For one thing, unlike other rabbits,
Pascual is more than two thousand years old, but I’m hopping ahead.
When Pascual was born, he was a normal animal. Only he was,
perhaps, a bit more curious than a typical rabbit. He didn’t always run away,
as rabbits do. He would watch things.
One day, his curiosity brought him to a most curious scene:
a woman atop a donkey, led by a man. The woman’s belly was big and round.
Pascual decided to follow them.
They stopped first at a busy house and it was very loud.
Then they ended up in a manger. The man helped the woman down. He was very
careful with her. Pascual was very curious.
You may have already guessed what Pascual saw that night in
the manger. You see, the lagomorph is a kind of rabbit that lives near
Bethlehem. The woman was Mary. The man was Joseph. And a special baby was born
that night.
Yes, Pascual was there for the first Christmas morning. It was a magical
morning. And, it turns out, a bit of that magic got into Pascual. He was no
longer just a rabbit. He understood who the baby was and he loved him.
Pascual stayed by the manger, more curious than ever. Soon,
there were visitors. They brought gifts, as you know, of gold, frankincense,
and myrrh. A gift, of course! Why didn’t he think of it?
So Pascual, knowing little of what humans value in a gift,
found an old basket that had been left in the road. He filled it with the most
interesting rocks he could find and placed it in the manger for Mary.
When she saw the basket full of rocks, Mary threw the rocks
out and kept the basket. And so it became Pascual’s tradition to bring the
family a basket every year for the child’s birthday.
As Jesus grew up, Pascual watched him. He watched him learn
Joseph’s trade as a carpenter. He watched and listened when Jesus taught. One
day, Jesus, still a boy, was teaching in the Synagogue.
Mary and Joseph didn’t know where he was. They were looking
everywhere. Pascual saw that they were worried but, being a rabbit, he couldn’t
tell them where Jesus was.
So he decided to show them. Pascual gathered berries and
made a trail to the synagogue. Mary and Joseph followed and found Jesus
teaching the grown ups, which Pascual found very amusing.
Pascual observed miracles from Jesus. His rabbit heart leapt
with joy when Jesus raised the daughter of Jairus from the dead, and healed the
sick, blind, and deaf. What a joy it was to be a rabbit in the days of Jesus.
But all was not to remain happy. Confused and heart broken,
Pascual watched as Jesus died on a cross at Calvary. There was such sadness all
around. Such despair. What could a rabbit do?
Three days later, Pascual was still wondering what he could
do when Jesus appeared, risen from the dead, to Mary. His little rabbit heart
leapt with joy again to see his friend, and to learn that death was not the end.
And then Pascual decided what he would do. You see, there is
a little part of the story that I left out earlier, and that it took Pascual
himself a long time to realize: Pascual had become a magic rabbit.
Pascual didn’t get old. He didn’t die. And he had other
magic as well. So every year, on the day when Jesus was resurrected, Pascual
delivers baskets to the kids of the world, like the baskets he used to give
Mary.
And he leaves jellybeans because they remind him of the
berries he used to help Mary and Joseph. Pascual wants us all to find our way
to Jesus.
He replaced rocks with eggs in the baskets because he realized humans don’t
have much use for rocks. And the eggs, a shell from which life can emerge,
remind Pascual of Jesus breaking out of the tomb.
Yes, as you have surely figured out, Pascual is the Easter
Bunny.
You might wonder how I know all of this. Well, Pascual
wasn’t the only animal in the manger on Christmas morning.
