Dear Parishioners:
Happy Easter! Alleluia, He has Risen! Today, we celebrate the center and core of our Christian faith, the Resurrection! For our faith is a Resurrection Faith. We rejoice today, for the Risen Christ, having conquered sin and death, remains with us across the ages. The Lord's Easter gift to the Church and the world is the gift of hope. Because the Risen Christ remains with us personally and collectively, we never face life's challenges alone. Christian hope teaches us that we are destined for eternal life, and hope is meant to sustain us in the concrete realities we face each day.
As we celebrate this Easter, no truth is more relevant than hope built on Christian faith. St. John Paul II said: "Yes, Christ is truly risen, and we are witnesses of this. We proclaim this witness to the world so that our joy will reach countless other hearts, kindling in them the light of the hope which does not disappoint."
Our society and world are deeply divided in many ways. Our politics and populations are polarized. There is war and growing violence across the globe. There is no room for debate, listening, persuading, and being persuaded to a good compromise. The language of true tolerance has been replaced by hardened ideologies. It is into these deep divisions that the Easter message must be spoken anew. So now is the time to help the world see even more clearly Christ's passion, death, and Resurrection as the most profound expression of unfathomable love and mercy. This love and mercy must be proclaimed despite the war, destruction, sin, apathy, and tensions in the Church and the world.
Christ's victory and continued presence shine in our lives through the Church, the sacraments, and the witness of God's people. Signs of that continued witness are visible in those we welcome into the Church at the Easter Vigil, as we do this Easter at OLM. Today, on Easter Sunday, Christians desperately need to proclaim the cross and live in Easter hope. This hope exposes the lies of the world and is stronger than conflict or worldly ambition for power and status. It invites and welcomes all who seek the peace that only true discipleship can bring, living in conformity to God's will rather than our own. It is a true new beginning.
Pope Francis memorably taught in his Easter homily last year, "It is always possible to begin anew because there is always a new life that God can awaken in us despite all our failures. From the rubble of our hearts — and each one of us knows the rubble of our hearts — God can create a work of art; from the ruined remnants of our humanity, God can prepare a new history. He never ceases to go ahead of us: in the cross of suffering, desolation, and death, and in the glory of a life that rises again, a history that changes, a hope that is reborn."
The empty tomb of Jesus was a sign of God's victory over hatred, violence, death, and everything that diminishes the human person and community. "Amor vincit omnia": love overcomes everything. That is an authentic love overcomes, a self-sacrificing love, not a self-indulgent love. As we celebrate Easter, our call is to be people of faith, hope, and love. To be people who let the light of the Easter Candle burn brightly within us so that others may share in the joyful truth of the Easter message. "We are an Easter People, and Alleluia is our song!"
Such Easter hope is not found in an ideal, an ideology, or philosophy but in an encounter with a person, the Risen Christ. The Christ who went to a place where no one else would willingly go for us. The Christ who then emerged from a place where no one else has ever - the grave! As Pope Francis said:
"He who rolled away the stone that sealed the entrance of the tomb can also remove the stones in our hearts. He did not abandon us; He visited us and entered into our situations of pain, anguish, and death. His light dispelled the darkness of the tomb: He wants that light to penetrate even into the darkest corners of our lives today."
Fr. Mahoney, Fr. Connors, and I wish you a Holy and Happy Easter! May the Easter Season be a grace-filled time for you and your families. "Alleluia, He has risen as He said, Alleluia! Alleluia!" Be well. Do good. God Bless.