Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Happy Easter to you and your families! Thank you for your love for the inspired Word of God. Thank you for your love for the Resurrection appearances of our Lord in this Easter season and the way your lives are set on fire in your meditation and contemplation of these mysteries.
Thank you for your fidelity to the Eucharist and the Sunday Mass and your Catholic spirit of evangelization. Thank you for being instruments of Eucharistic Revival.
In The Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis states: "Christ's resurrection is not an event of the past; it contains a vital power which has permeated the world. Where all seems to be dead, signs of the resurrection suddenly spring up. It is an irresistible force... Each day in our world beauty is born anew, iti rises transformed through the storms of history...Such is the power of the resurrection, and all who evangelize are instruments of that power." (276)
We continue to live through "the storms of history" and we rely on the Risen Lord and his glorified wounds to touch the wounds ni Ukraine, the Middle East, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Armenia and Azerbaijan, the region of the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and Sudan, as well as Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan and so many other troubled areas of the world.' We ask the Risen Lord and his glorified wounds to touch the wounds experienced in our own country.
In The Everlasting Man, G.K. Chesterton captured the power of our Lord's Resurrection experienced in the cycles of history. He wrote: "Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave."
This Easter and every Easter we celebrate this Everlasting Man who knew his way out of the grave and who invites us and the Catholic Church on Long Island to a great Resurrection.
Sincerely yours in the Risen Lord,
Most Reverend John O. Barres
Diocese of Rockville Centre