A year after the COVID-19 pandemic closed churches, forcing Catholics to miss Easter Sunday Mass in person, the doors swung open this Easter, and parishioners came back in droves to worship together and share in the glory of the promise of the Resurrection.
Pope Francis said faith is not an “album of past memories” and that “Jesus is not outdated,” nor is God something that can be filed away as a childhood memory because he’s present at “every moment of our lives” on Saturday, April 3.
by Sister Ave Clark, O.P.
WHAT A BEAUTIFUL season Easter is – a time to sing joyously, Alleluia Alleluia! But I’ve been singing with some tears this Easter season for my dear friend Arthur.
It’s quiet and dark in the cavernous gallery above Jesus’ burial place. Raed Khalil and his team of trained restorers have been methodically cleaning off centuries of soot and dirt from 39 ancient mosaics and two carved marble pieces.
I’M FORTUNATE TO hear good preaching on a regular basis. But even the best Catholic preaching leans far more toward moral exhortation than biblical exposition. This strikes me as a missed opportunity. For if one of the tasks of preaching today is to help the people of the Church “see” the world and our lives more clearly by piercing through the regnant fog of cultural confusion, then there’s no substitute for expository preaching that digs into the biblical text, unpacks it and shows how it provides a unique optic on the here-and-now.
We, Easter people, witness that we are saved and redeemed by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In the services, rituals and Eucharists of just this week alone, we find that meaning reinforced and dramatized.
The Lord is Risen! Alleluia! Alleluia! Death and destruction is swallowed up in victory. For a while, evil seemed to thrive but the Risen Lord sends out His spirit on all humankind. Now the Word can become flesh in us, if we allow it.
