A BLESSED AND HAPPY EASTER TO ALL!
The fact that each year the spring brings Easter tidings may be a coincidence; but no coincidence is the reverse: that Easter brings spring-time news.
Easter is an explosion of joy that speaks of life, of light, of freedom, of victory, of resurrection. This is what we celebrated at the Easter Vigil: the passage from death to life; from darkness to light; from slavery to freedom.
The resurrection of Jesus proves that He was right after all. Things happened in the way He declared they would happen: Resurrexit sicut dixit. The Scriptures spoke of him and in him they found fulfillment, as the risen Lord explained to the disciples along the way to Emmaus. Jesus was not disappointed in what he believed, said and did.
Neither can we be disappointed for having made the God of Jesus the object of our faith, the path in which we walk and the recipient of our obedience. What great liberation is the Easter news for us, as Christians and as religious! True, our daily lives have to prove, as in Jesus’ case, that our faith is not a vain illusion, that our words do not hide deception and that our actions are not mere appearances.
“I know very well whom I trusted,†St Paul said at the end of his life. What about us, can we say the same at the present stage of our journey? I am sure we can. But that being the case, should it not be at least a bit surprising that at times some of our options lack the religious, community-oriented quality which should characterize them?
“Do not seek among the dead the one who is alive!” When will the joyful proclamation of Jesus’ resurrection eventually convince us that sin is not human (on the contrary, it dehumanizes us) and that the living Lord may not be found among the dead and selfish?
“Go to Galilee, there you will see me!” Our going to Galilee in search of Jesus means to start walking… But often we are prey to a sluggishness that we never envisioned when we made our profession; to a comfort that rejects anything that draws us from our plans; to the fear of recovering the missionary spirit that lies atrophied in us; to lack of interest in new vocations which make us feel uncomfortable because of the change they demand; to the conviction that what we are doing is more important than what we are asked to do; to an unavailability we hurry to justify with a lot of empty excuses… No wonder then, to cite some examples, that superiors can hardly find available brethren; that the internet is becoming for some a real alienation; or that apostolic zeal is truly absent from many lives.
I wish to thank and to encourage all the brethren with this message. May the Easter celebration of this year 2011 bring a new springtime to our lives; that the Alleluia be also our song; and that it produce copious fruits of conversion in every one of us.
We have a God that is a blessing, said St Augustine: Where He enters, death leaves and life in abundance springs.
To all the brethren, A BLESSED AND HAPPY EASTER!
Fr. Javier Gonzalez Izquierdo, OP
Holy Rosary Province Provincial
Hong Kong April 23, 2011