Christos anesti Alleluia!
Christ is risen Alleluia!!
It was deeply moving for me to celebrate the Good Friday liturgy this year. One of my dearest friends lay in a hospital bed trying to recover from a very painful procedure that attempted to stem the hemorrhage that continued over two days. But now as I prepare to celebrate Easter, my friend is still weak and continuing to bleed and her life is threatened by it, my heart is still heavy. It doesn't feel like Easter to me emotionally.

Liturgically Easter is not always celebrated by all Christians on the same date every year. There has been controversy over that for centuries, but the reality of Easter isn't determined by a date on a calendar, or a cycle of the moon, or because a preacher proclaims it or a choir chants Alleluia. Easter becomes a reality when each of us who are believers makes our life a source of light for our fellow men and women, when our words heal, when our hearts understand, when lesser values die in us for the sake of greater realities.

When we are caught up in our personal pains, fears, disappointments, broken hearts and grief, we don't know where to look for Jesus. Our expectations get warped. We want everything to be made better, to be healed, renewed. As I walked and prayed the Stations of the Cross with many parishioners in the cold on Good Friday, the reflection at the twelfth station read, " Although the world will not be completely healed and reconciled within history, but only when Jesus returns at the end on time, nevertheless, the death and resurrection of Jesus has broken the hold of sin and death over us. Our liberation has already begun.!"

When "all is well for us and those we love" it may be easier to sing Alleluia Christ is risen, but the impact of that truth is lost on those who are still in the midst of pain, sorrow, doubt, despair, and grief. It is precisely when we have suffered that we can walk alongside those who suffer, when we have known the anguish of seeing the suffering and dying of a loved one that we can understand the depths of pain and grief. Jesus will be seen by others if we, you and I who are baptized in His name, make Him visible by what we say and do. When we champion life from its beginning to its natural end, Jesus lives! When we reach out to someone whose despair is as deep as the darkest night, Jesus lives! When we comfort those whose journey has come to an end and offer them our gentlest care as they pass from our sight, Jesus lives, when we stand at the beside of the sick and suffering and companion with them in their pain, Jesus lives! when we offer the results of our Lenten fasting and almsgiving to help the poor, Jesus lives! In spite of the scandal in the Church over the past years, people still come seeking to know Jesus through Baptism and Communion, Jesus lives! Jesus is the true light of the world. Even in the darkest moments of my life, or should I say, especially at such times, I believe the darkness will not overcome the Light. Christ is risen alleluia! He is truly risen alleluia! alleluia!