We are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song.

 

EASTER 2025

Today is about abundance! The abundance of food and drink, of family and friends, of gratitude and hope. Today is about an abundance of Grace.  Today is a day of Easter joy.  We are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song.

And yet, on the first Easter day, the first disciples did not exactly experience the Resurrection event with the magnificence of Easter music and Easter flowers and a wonderful sense of celebration.  The first disciples did not immediately proclaim: We are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song.

For the first disciples, their Easter faith was much more gradual.  The first disciples encountered the empty tomb before experiencing the Risen Lord.  The Easter Gospel speaks of the empty tomb experiences of Mary Magdalene and the apostles Peter and John.  They only gradually came to an Easter faith.

An important truth of our lives is that we discover important things about our lives at the empty tomb. 

Just as the first disciples experienced the empty tomb before they came to a resurrection faith, we need to encounter the empty tombs of our own lives – whether the cancer will be cured, or we will love again, or find a job that fulfills our calling. 

As with the first disciples, our empty tomb experiences are the moments of darkness and confusion in life.  As we peer into the empty tombs of the ups and downs of everyday life, we are challenged to see and believe as the apostle John did as he stared into the empty tomb.

 

Ours is an Easter religion.  For us Easter is a living reality.  We do not deny the challenges, the setbacks, the darkness, the grieving we experience, the anxiety that too often gets the best of us.

We do not deny these miseries, but we refuse to surrender to their power because of our faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Suffering will be vindicated; death will be overcome; a new life will arise: that is the Easter message of the paschal mystery. We do not deny these miseries, but we refuse to surrender to their power because of our faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

I invite you to use the prayerthat is meaningful to me:   “Lord of Easter’s Promise, I live in faith of the Resurrection, but . . . so much of me remains entombed. Break open the tomb so that I may live with a Easter Joy.”

May our Easter faith in the presence of the Risen Christ within our hearts fill us with an Easter joy.   Allow yourself to be loved by the God who goes with us in all situations of life. Be assured that with the eyes of faith the vaccine we most need is found in our solidarity with the Risen Lord and in our solidarity with each other as a community of faith.

We are an Easter people.  This means that we are not buried in the tomb of our sins, evil habits, or dangerous addictions.  Our Resurrection faith gives us the Good News that no tomb can hold us down anymore -- not the tomb of despair, discouragement or doubt, not that of death.  Instead, the joy of the Risen Lord fills our spirit.

May we listen as the Risen Lord  calls us by name and welcomes us into the joy of sharing in His Risen life. 

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.

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. 

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.  

More than ever on this beautiful Easter day, we need to trust and embrace the grace Jesus offers.  The Risen Jesus calls us by name and offers us the grace to walk away from the empty tombs of the fears and the demons of our lives so that we live with Easter joy and an Easter peace.  This indeed is our journey to an Easter faith.

For me my Easter dream is that we as a parish family  gather to give thanks to the Lord our God because God desires our Easter friendship.  May we allow the Risen Lord to fill this world and our hearts with his love.

In the words of Pope Francis, the grandeur of life lies not in possessions and promotions, but in realizing that we are loved and in experiencing the beauty of loving others.

In his farewell message to his disciples at the Last Supper said: “By this all shall know that you are my disciples, by your love for one another.”

God desires our Easter friendship. God desires that we share our friendship with each other.  May we allow the Risen Lord to fill this world and our hearts with His love.

Have a blessed Easter day.