Dear Holy People of God,

Happy Easter! We have gone through the 40 days of Lent, in which the Church invited us all to become more intensely aware of the redeeming work of Christ. We relive with Jesus the forty days that he spent in the desert, in prayer and fasting, before undertaking his public ministry, which culminated with this crucifixion on the hill of Calvary outside Jerusalem. During these 40 days, we have listened to the Scriptures with open hearts; we have prayed the Stations of the Cross with devoted hearts; and as a parish family, we spent Sunday evenings in the presence of the Eucharistic Lord, meditating and reflecting on the Our Father prayer, the prayer that Jesus taught us as the pattern of all prayers. The last 40 days have also seen us reach out to the neighbor, in a spirit of charity, supporting, through the St. Vincent de Paul Society and through our parish Fund for the Poor, our needy sisters and brothers, especially during these very challenging socio-economic times in which many continue to struggle to get back to the normalcy of their lives.

Dear Holy People of God, as I pointed out last week, the central mystery of Easter is that God loves each and every one person so much that God in Christ enters history to help every human being, the good, the bad, the ugly. As St. Augustine says, God loves everyone as if each person was the only one that God created. Sometimes we might not feel this loving care of God. Oftentimes it appears as if talk about God's love is pious platitude. Easter is a demonstration of how far God is prepared to go to offer us help, out of his love for us. For many, God is distant. For too many, God does not even exist. And again, for many, even if God is there, we do not believe that God really intervenes in our lives. Many Christians have the notion of a Deist God, that is, a God who is there, but cannot do anything to help me, after all, as the saying goes, heaven helps those who help themselves.

Easter tells us that is not true. That God is not a weak, powerless God. That God is prepared to go the extra mile to hep me. And where else does the human being feel most vulnerable than when faced with suffering, helplessness, rejection, pain, poverty, sickness, betrayal, abandonment, loneliness, frustration, and despair? How would God help me if God does not know what these human realities concretely are? In the final analysis, Easter is an event - the Father raised the Son to new life, because death could not hold him captive. But Easter is more than an event. Easter is a message - God has broken the circle of human violence and evil, by denying evil, suffering, pain, betrayal, inhumanism, the last word. Easter is a message that says: God has not abandoned the world to itself. The human being, left alone, ends up building the world against each other. God is not a distant spectator. In Christ, God has entered the human condition, fully embracing everything human, and, in fidelity to the vision of love, did not shy away, but fully embraced the Cross as the price of love, of redemption.

Are we willing to give God a chance? In a world marked by the uncertainty of continuous existence and restricted existence imposed upon us by Covid, Easter is a forceful message: Do not despair. Do not allow fear to paralyze you. Just as God raised Jesus from death against all odds and in the face of all predictions of failure and doom, God is about to bring out a new springtime. I firmly believe that the best parts of our life as a parish family are yet to come. I firmly believe that Ste. Anne's has a crucial role to play in the re-evangelization of Salem and its environs. Let us continue to open our wills and hearts to the new life offered by the Father in his Son Jesus Christ, who is alive, and because Jesus is alive, you and I can face tomorrow. We can face the future. As the Saintly Pope. John Paul II often reminded us, do not be afraid! Open the doors of your plans to Christ. Do not be afraid of the future. Do not be afraid of tomorrow. God will never abandon you. With the Resurrection, Jesus is forever present to each and every one of us, in our joys and sorrows, in good and bad times. Do not be afraid of life. I firmly believe that life is worth living, and that the Christian life is a beautiful life.

I wish you and all your loved ones, a blessed and happy Easter season, in the name of Fr. Jim, Fr. Casmia, Fr. Denis, Seminarian John, Sr. Pauline, and all our parish staff and volunteers here at Ste. Anne's. Thank you for being a valued member of our parish family. [Fr. Maurice]