What will it take for you to be convicted of the Easter message that Jesus seeks to fill this world with His love?

Today is the day of Easter joy.   We proclaim the centerpiece of our Catholic Christian faith:  Jesus Christ is Risen from the dead.  Alleluia! Alleluia!  Today we celebrate the reason why we are a people of hope and new life.  Today we cast off fear and make a leap of faith.  Liturgically we light the Easter candle because we believe in the light that comes from the Risen Lord.  This Easter candle needs to be lit in the deep recesses of our hearts.

May we all be aware of how we encounter the Lord on this Easter day  -- as parents who bring their families to this Easter Eucharist, as Catholics who have participated in the other liturgies of Holy Week on Holy Thursday and Good Friday, as Catholics who may have not been in Church since Christmas day, as Catholics who are very distracted by the busyness of life, as Catholics who have recently experienced the death of one you  love or the pain of some significant brokenness in life, or as pilgrims who seek to come to the Lord more deeply in their lives. 

My hunch is that those of us who are gathered today come from all over the spiritual landscape.  Each one of us is unique.  This is not by accident.  It is by God’s design.  We need to dispense with the myth that there is one size that fits all for us as Catholic Christians.  May there always be considerable diversity in the ways each one of us encounters our loving God.  We are a big Church.  There is room for everyone.

In every way possible to say it, the Lord’s Easter message is that all are welcome; all are forgiven; all are invited to the Easter banquet.  Does this mean that anything goes, that our Church is a Church without rules or discipline?   Of course not.   It does mean that the Lord’s love and Risen Life is to be shared by all.  There is nothing we can do to stop God from loving us.  Yes, we do need to open ourselves to the forgiveness and reconciliation and love the Lord extends to us.  And as sure as the sun rises each day, when our hearts are touched by the love of Jesus, we are motivated to share this love with one and all.  

On this Easter day, I am grateful for all the resurrection moments I experience in the vibrant life of our parish community.

For me, I sense the presence of the Risen Lord when I hear crying in our Church.  This for me does not disturb my prayer, for I think there is no future to the Church if there is no crying.  Crying for me is a sign of family prayer as moms and dads are passing on the gift of faith to their children.  Thank you moms and dads for bringing your children to Church.

Another beautiful resurrection moment in our parish life is when our teens led us in prayer on the evening of Good Friday in the Seven Last Words Service.   For me, every Sunday at the 5:00 pm, our parish teens lift up their voices in the praise of God.  Their youthful faith is expressive of the presence of the Risen Lord in our parish community.  I am grateful for the faith of our parish teens.

I am grateful for all the young families in our parish who bring their children to be baptized, to make their First Communion, First Reconciliation, and then completing their Christian Initiation with the Sacrament of Confirmation.

In our Good Friday liturgy, I was inspired by the faith and hope of all who venerated the cross.  I saw the elderly – some with the help of a walker --approaching the cross; I saw a pregnant mom who also was carrying her daughter of 1/1/2 years to the cross of Jesus.

I am especially to all the single moms and dads of our faith commmunity;  your presence in our faith community is a resurrection moment for me.   I grateful for the divorced and separated who are a beautiful and most important part of our faith community; I am grateful to those who are straight and for those who are gay, and I am grateful for the all the ways people seek to discover the presence of our loving God in their sexuality.

 The Gospel is not merely a story in which we are offered the good example of a man who lived a life of love. It is much more, for it shows us that God has renewed the life of each one of us totally from within through the Spirit of the Risen Christ who now lives in us.  The Lord’s Easter proclamation is that I do not decide which lives have value and dignity; God does.

The love of the Risen Lord is meant for you, for the person sitting next to you, and for everyone.  What will it take for you to be convicted of the Easter message that Jesus seeks to fill this world with His love?  What will take for us to believe that God’s love will triumph over poverty, conflict, violence and war.

Lord, I pray, that in spite of our sinfulness, we will be signs of hope and love to each other and to the wider community as well.

Whenever and wherever we trust and hope in the light that comes from the risen Lord, our spiritual darkness fades away.   May you too be very much in touch with how the spirit of the Risen Lord lives in your family and in our parish family.

We cannot celebrate Easter in one day; we will not come to faith in one Mass.  AS God’s Easter people, we make the journey together over the course of a life time.  Whenever and wherever we trust and hope in the light that comes from the risen Lord, our spiritual darkness fades away.  As surely as the dark of night gives way to the dawn, the Lord’s gift of Easter joy awaits you.

Have a blessed day.  Today is our day of Easter joy.