❣Rejoice, Alleluia people, rejoice❣
"We are the Easter people, and Alleluia is our song!" By Fr. Tom Washburn
Info from this site:
http://afriarslife.blogspot.com/2011/04/we-are-easter-people-and-alleluia-is.html
Excerpts from the article;
"As soon as the Easter Vigil and the festivity of Easter Sunday are done, resurrection joy seems to fade as fast as the Easter lilies wilt. The celebration of Easter seems to fade into the secret service. But, as our beloved former St. Pope John Paul II, reminded us so well, “We are the Easter people and alleluia is our song.” Easter isn’t merely an historical commemoration – it is and should be for us – a way of life. The resurrection of Jesus is the most central reality in our faith. As St. Paul says in First Corinthians, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain; you are still in your sins.”
Resurrection changes everything. In his book, N.T. Wright suggests that “if Lent is a time to give things up, Easter ought to be a time to take things up.” He suggests finding the opportunities to be more social with family and friends and faith community – to enjoy one another and celebrate our common bonds as sons and daughters of God. He recommends that we joyfully remember our own baptism – when we died with Christ so that we might live with Him forever – by splashing water joyfully. He recommends that we go around town engaging in surprise acts of generosity and kindness and goodness; that we become the embodiment of Christ’s new life that fills our world. That our Easter candle not be a mere light in our Church building, but that we become that bright light for all the world to see.
If people noticed our ashes and our fasting and abstinence during Lent; they should also now notice our joy and happiness in the reality of the resurrection. We should embrace Easter so fully that those around us might ask, “What is the meaning of all of this?” If the assertion is correct that we have forgotten how to celebrate Easter properly; we see evidence of it in a Gospel passage. Certainly for the frightened disciples locked in the Upper Room, resurrection joy has faded. On the evening of Easter day, instead of celebrating, that have withdrawn into hiding and locked themselves away.
It isn’t difficult to imagine why. A coalition of secular and religious authorities has conspired to crucify Jesus. Perhaps the disciples feared that the people who had come for Jesus might now come for them. Along with that, you can’t help but wonder if the disciples were hiding in shame over personal failure, too. They had let Jesus down, failed Him in so many ways. Earlier in the Gospel of John, Thomas suggested that if the disciples were going to follow Jesus to Jerusalem, they might as well die with Him. They didn’t. At the Last Supper, Peter said to Jesus, “I will lay down my life for you.” He didn’t. In fact, just a few hours later, he denied Jesus.
This must be the reason that the first words Jesus speaks to His disciples are, “Peace be with you.” It is an astonishing gift, this gift of peace, for the people who had denied, betrayed and abandoned Jesus. It is an astonishing gift that Jesus extends to us as well – we who know how we have failed Him by what we have done and what we have left undone. To us all – those disciples in the Upper Room and you and I in this Church – God’s love comes in person. The Risen Christ shows the disciples His hands and side as signs of divine mercy and love for the world. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends,” Jesus said the night before His death. To understand that you and I remain friends of Jesus, even after betrayal and denial is astonishing. To find in Him reconciliation and not revenge or punishment is in itself new life. “Peace be with you,” Jesus says to the disciples, and even to Thomas in his doubt. He says it to us as well. And with those simple words, resurrection joy is restored. Easter goes on.
We know that the disciples withdrawal in the Upper Room was temporary; that Thomas went from doubting to proclaiming, “My Lord and My God!” Let us be a people markedly different for the 50 days of Easter and beyond because He has truly risen, as He said!!
Let us make St. Peter’s words today our own, “Although you have not seen him you love him; even though you do not see him now yet believe in him, you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, as you attain the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
"The Cross had asked the questions; the Resurrection had answered them...The Cross had asked: "Why does God permit evil and sin to nail Justice to a tree?" The Resurrection answered: "That sin, having done its worst, might exhaust itself and this be overcome by Love that is stronger than either sin or death". By Archbishop Fulton Sheen