HAPPY EASTER!

This is the day the Lord has made; Let us rejoice and be glad. Alleluia!
This is the day of days, the climax of our faith; the celebration of the death of Jesus Christ and His Resurrection after three days. We called the day He died “Good Friday” instead of “Bad” or Sad” Friday, and instead of going home in disappointment after His crucifixion and death, we eagerly waited at the tomb for Him to emerge glorious, and He did.

The idea and concept of what transpired these past days is kind of foreign to human logic and thought, and that is why it is called a mystery; the Paschal mystery.
This Paschal mystery has two aspects: by Jesus’ death, He liberated us from sin; by His Resurrection, He opened for us the way to a new life. This new life is above all justification that reinstates us in God’s grace, “so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4).

Justification consists in both victory over the sting of sin which is death, and a new life and participation in grace. It brings about filial adoption, the capacity of being called children of God, so that we become Christ’s brethren, as Jesus Himself called His disciples after His Resurrection: “Go and tell my brethren” (Matt. 28:10; Jn. 20:17).
Although, we are brethren not by nature, for by nature we are human persons.

We are brethren by the gift of grace, because that adoptive filiation or sonship gains us a real share in the life of the only Son, which was fully revealed in His Resurrection. We have become “divinized” in the sense that Jesus Christ, God the Son, taking our human nature, raises it to Himself so that our human nature could have the capacity to respond freely to the grace and promptings of God.

This is why we celebrate and rejoice, because as our brother, Jesus Christ, has conquered sin and death, He has won and thus obtained for us the grace, capacity and power to be victorious also over sin and death. Sin has no power over us, death has no authority over us.

This is the day the Lord has made; Let us rejoice and be glad. Alleluia! I pray for all of us as in the Opening Prayer of this Sunday; “O God, who on this day, through your Only Begotten Son, have conquered death and unlocked for us the path to eternity, grant we pray, that we who keep the solemnity of the Lord’s Resurrection may, through the renewal brought by your Spirit, rise up in the light of life. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen!”

Happy Easter to you and to all the members of your family, friends and loved ones!!!

Fr. Stan.