Dear Friends,
It is Easter! Believe it or not, today is Easter, the strangest Easter that I have ever experienced. It is the appointed time to unleash the suppressed song of joy: Alleluia! But how can we burst into singing the Alleluia still bundled up at our homes by the deathly fear of this unimaginable and unsightly coronavirus. I am reminded of Psalm 137, when the people of Israel who were in captivity speak thus: By the rivers of Babylon there we sat weeping when we remembered Zion. On the poplars in its midst we hung up our harps. For there our captors asked us for the words of a song; Our tormentors, for joy: “Sing for us a song of Zion!” But how could we sing a song of the LORD in a foreign land?
Yet even in the depth of misery the people of Israel never forgot Jerusalem, the city of their joy and salvation. They exalted Jerusalem beyond all their delights. Yes, my dear friends, this Easter might be strange but still the work of Christ continues to happen even now. Perhaps the salvific work of Christ is vigorously active more now than ever. Yes, we can still burst forth into singing the joyous song of praise, Alleluia. Yes, the Lord has Risen indeed.
These self-imposed quarantined days of confinement and penance are an opportunity to explore more deeply “the weather of the heart.” Does the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead hold the central place in your heart? Is it still the heart of your faith? In these dark, messy, unpredictable, and unknown times of COVID-19, “Christ himself descends into the depths of our most bitter sufferings,” to be one with us so as not to remain stuck in our sin sick world but to liberate us. This is where the indispensable ingredient of Easter comes alive, namely, HOPE. In these days of COVID-19 what does hope mean to us? What does hope in desperate and life changing situations look like? Hope has been experienced as one’s refusal to resign, refusal to quit, it is to cease from saying, “there’s nothing I can do about it.” It is to be able to say that “the time for fear is over. Now is the time for hope.” Fr George Smiga thus reflects: “When that which we dread finally occurs, there is nothing left to fear. When we lose someone we love in death, when all that we clung to so desperately as our fortress collapses and crumples, the time for fear is over. Then, facing the evil that is before us, we must choose between hope and despair.” This hope repeated becomes faith; faith in the Only Person that can save us from these perilous times. The resurrection of Jesus is the source of Christian hope.
Jesus’ resurrection from the tomb is the revelation of a God who loves humanity and is able and willing to act in our lives and in our world.
Yes, my dear friends, the anchor of our faith is based on Easter! Jesus is Risen! Our bitter and dark days will be over and we will see the light of the SON shining again. You can indeed burst into singing confidently: “ALLELUIA!”
On behalf of Fr. John Patrick, the Deacons, and the Staff, let me wish you and your family a very Blessed Easter! May the risen and life-giving Lord Jesus Christ bring his salve of redemption and liberation in this time of trial and uncertainty!
With Love,
Fr. John Britto Antony C.S.C.