An ancient Easter tradition has Catholics
greeting each other with the words of Luke 24:34, "The Lord is truly
risen!" The person so greeted responds, "And has appeared unto
Simon!" Simon, named Peter by Jesus, continues to proclaim the
resurrection of Christ through the person of his successor, the Roman
Pontiff.
Happy Easter to all! Fr. Marc-André Campbell
Holy Father’s Intentions for April 2013
General: That the public, prayerful
celebration of faith may give life to the faithful.
Missionary: That mission churches may be signs and instruments of hope and resurrection.
Missionary: That mission churches may be signs and instruments of hope and resurrection.
THE HOPE THAT JESUS GIVES US
Jesus’ heart looks to all of us, to our sicknesses, to our sins. The
love of Jesus is great. And thus he enters Jerusalem, with this love, and looks
at us. It is a beautiful scene, full of light - the light of the love of Jesus,
the love of his heart - of joy, of celebration. Jesus is God, but he lowered
himself to walk with us. He is our friend, our brother. He illumines our path
here: a Christian cannot be sad! Never give way to discouragement! Ours is not
a joy born of having many possessions, but from having encountered Jesus in our
midst; it is born from knowing that with him we are never alone, even at
difficult moments, even when our life’s journey comes up against problems and
obstacles that seem insurmountable, and there are so many of them! In these
moments our enemy, the devil, comes... Do not listen to him! Let us follow
Jesus! We accompany Jesus, but above all we know that he accompanies us and
carries us on his shoulders. This is our joy, this is the hope that we must
bring to this world. Please do not let yourselves be robbed of hope! Do not let
hope be stolen!
Jesus takes upon himself the evil, the filth, the sin of the world,
including the sin of all of us, and he cleanses it, he cleanses it with his
blood, with the mercy and the love of God. Let us look around: how many wounds
are inflicted upon humanity by evil: wars, violence, economic conflicts that
hit the weakest, greed for money that you can’t take with you and have to leave
behind (when we were small, our grandmother used to say: a shroud has no
pockets), love of power, corruption, divisions, crimes against human life and
against creation! And – as each one of us knows and is aware - our personal sins:
our failures in love and respect towards God, towards our neighbour and towards
the whole of creation. Jesus on the Cross feels the whole weight of the evil,
and with the force of God’s love he conquers it, he defeats it with his
resurrection. This is the good that Jesus does for us on the throne of the
Cross. Christ’s Cross embraced with love never leads to sadness, but to joy, to
the joy of having been saved and of doing a little what Jesus did on the day of
his death.
gPope
Francis, Homily of Palm Sunday
