From the desk of the pastor for April 20, 2025

Christ is risen! Christ is truly risen, Alleluia! I hope that this Easter greeting finds you well and ready for the joy of this holy season. As we celebrate Christ’s Resurrection, we are united to His everlasting victory.

The Resurrection reveals Jesus as God and Man made glorious through suffering. As St. Thomas the Apostle discovered, Christ still bears the wounds He received on Calvary. Bruised, beaten, and crucified, Our Lord has taken the most broken aspects of our world and made them His trophy. The Cross now stands no longer an instrument of torture and pain but the Tree of Eternal Life for those who accept Christ and His offer of grace.

Here we all need to pause and reflect: how will I receive Christ? Will I be like Peter who boldly boasted of his faith only to have my weakness revealed? Will I be like John who walked with Our Lord and even comforted His Mother? Or will I be a mere spectator, one who comes with the crowd and leaves with them back to my old way of life?

In this jubilee year of mercy, Christ invites us deeper into His Life: He wants us all to embrace not merely His Cross but also His Divine Life! Casting off our sins and vices, we are to grow in His image and likeness so that the whole world can be restored in Him. An excellent way to grow in Christ is to celebrate the whole Easter Octave. From Easter Sunday to Divine Mercy Sunday, we have eight days of rejoicing. Lifting our hearts in imitation of the Risen One, let us boldly proclaim that Jesus has conquered death and lives forever!

By our baptisms each of us has died with Jesus and risen with Him already. Much as Christ’s Divinity was hidden before His Resurrection, our participation in God - grace - has no outward sign. Instead, we must each cultivate that life by journeying inwards. During Lent we put aside the world and its wonders so that we can discover that God is closer than our own breadth. Through the sacraments we have become temples for the Holy Spirit. As we welcome new members to the Universal Church, we also remember that each of us has the dignity to be called a brother, a sister of Christ. On Easter we renew our baptismal promises precisely to proclaim to the world that we have all been made new in Jesus.

As St. Paul reminds us, we no longer live merely human lives: Christ lives in us! All too often we forget about His Life and only think of our own. Not even death can separate us from the life of God. The tomb lies empty, promising us that one day we too will have the glory that no human eye can see. He lives forever! May we now live for Him who died to set us free.

In His Sacred Heart,
Fr. John