Dear Parishioners, A very Happy Easter to you, your family, and your friends from all of us at Resurrection! Jesus was certainly involved with the human way of things. Poor people, sick people, lame people, blind people, orphans, and widows came for help

--and He helped them, cured them, loved them, and forgave whatever sins they committed. 

    His involvement with human beings did not stop with them.  In fact, when His body was placed in a tomb, even a casual observer would know that he had met up with the wrong kind of people.  He was severely beaten and assaulted, and He was crucified, indicating what sort of people He had to deal with. 

    When Mary Magdelan and Peter peered into the tomb for the first time, they could not say what happened.  Maybe the body was stolen or placed elsewhere.  But they would come to know what is proclaimed throughout the ages, even to this day, something that John seemed to know from the beginning.  He is risen; this is the day the Lord has made.  He was dead, but now lives in His Resurrection.  Things that Jesus said about destroying the temple of His body and that the temple being raised up would make sense.  The day of Jesus’ Transfiguration and His glory and the light shining from Him was not some sort of isolated incident but would prefigure Jesus’ glorious triumph over death. 

    The apostles of Jesus and His followers, people down the ages, and people today would know from the first Easter that the empty tomb would change things for humanity forever.  Death and human suffering and fear would be driven away by  the new life of Christ.  Hope in Jesus, in what He saw and did, would call all humanity, even wrongdoers from their tombs of fear, hopelessness, greed, hatred, selfishness, and violence; and these would be replaced by optimism, forgiveness, and charity. 

    Suffering and death would not be the same fearsome realities; death itself offers a life “that is merely changed.”  Jesus’ Resurrection and the empty tomb would unleash a great power in humanity.  We celebrate a great happening today for all humanity.  Today has to be a very special day for us, because we carry the banner of the Resurrection.  It is our name, it is our being.
     
                                       Happy Easter,
                                Msgr. Patrick J. Boyle,
                                Pastor