+JMJ
Dear Parishioners,
He is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! I pray that your experience of Easter celebrations this year be rich. I have to confess that growing up, it seemed that Christmas always was more important than Easter. I did not realize how important Easter is. Easter is actually the most important celebration of the entire Church year. We celebrate Jesus' resurrection from the dead on Easter. Christmas, of course, is very important, because the Son of God had to become a man in order to die in the first place. But, he became a man in order to suffer, die and rise from the dead. The incarnation (the Son of God becoming man) happened for the purpose of the death and resurrection.
Perhaps I never took Easter as seriously, because I did not take it as personally as I should have. Just as each believer can and should admit that his or her sin put Jesus on the cross, so should every believer acknowledge that Jesus' resurrection happened with each believer in the mind of God. Just as Jesus wants to free each individual from sin and death, so Jesus wants to share his resurrection with each individual, i.e., share eternal life with each individual believer.
We could also say that each individual believer wants to live the risen life, even now on earth. When we were baptized, we were baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus. Divine life was given us. Do you experience that Divine life? Are you alive and well, from heaven's perspective, from the eternal perspective?
Another way to tell that Easter is a big deal is to look at the length of the season. While we prepare with Lent for 40 days, we celebrate Easter for 50 days!
Another way to talk about the importance of Easter is to point out but it was the first event preached by the apostles and earliest believers. What did they believe? They believed in the resurrection. They preached that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. They all saw where he had been buried. They all knew the spot. It was very easy to return to that spot after the dust of Good Friday cleared. When they did return, his body was gone. That would've been impossible to pull off as a prank or deception. The resurrection gave Jesus' apostles such confidence in his victory, that most even went to their death preaching about Jesus. Nobody dies for a fantasy or a prank. The resurrection was their first message. The apostles were sure of the evidence for Jesus' resurrection.
May we all share the apostles' faith in the resurrection and partake richly of its fruits. Have a blessed Easter season!
In cordibus Iesu, Mariae, et Iosephus
Fr Poggemeyer