Dear Friends,

Prayerful best wishes to everyone for a blessed Easter! “It is truly right that with full hearts and minds and voices we should praise the unseen God, the all-powerful Father, and his only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. For Christ has ransomed us with his blood, and paid for us the price of Adam’s sin to our eternal Father!” (Easter Vigil)

As we rejoice in Christ’s resurrection, we pray that Jesus might perfect in us the redemptive work he has already begun. During Lent we accompanied Jesus on the way of the cross. “To know the crossÖis to know the love of ChristÖis to know Christ.” (Thomas Merton) Now, as risen Savior, Christ invites us to share the joy and new life of his resurrection.

Life in Christ is always a journey — until we are finally resurrected to eternal life with God in heaven. Jesus not only shows us the way to the Father; he, himself, is the Way. As we journey along the Sacred Way, problems, challenges, and suffering inevitably face us. In recent times we have been anguished by September 11, the war in Iraq, and other painful realities. Personal and family problems befall every one of us. We lament the suffering that our own sins cause.

It is the cross of Christ that gives significance to what we suffer. “If, then, we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. We know that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has power over him.” (Rom 6:8-9).

Our faith is certain: Jesus died on the cross for our sake, and rose again on the third day, that we might “have life, and have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10) With our eyes fixed on the risen Christ and our hearts open to his Easter grace, let us, with Mary Magdalene, embrace our being created anew, in his dying and rising, as bearers of his gladsome light: “I have seen the Lord!” (Jn 20:18) May we truly experience the joy and power of Christ’s Easter victory!

Sincerely in the Risen Christ,

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