You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place where they laid him.” Mk 16,6

Dear parishioners,

We come at the resurrection of Jesus from a very different angle than the disciples who first saw him alive after he had died. At the time of his death, as far as they knew, he was just a man. A very special man, to be sure, clearly a man very close to God, a man vested with divine power. But just a man. The proof of this is precisely their astonishment at seeing him alive after he had died. People don’t come back from death. After the stupefaction came the willingness to believe what they were seeing and hearing and touching, and then the gradual joyful realization that he had been announced all along in their Scriptures, and the even more joyous realization that going forward, his preaching could be trusted, taken seriously, since God raised him from the dead, which amounted to a stamp of divine confirmation on all that Jesus had taught.

We come at the same reality from a very different angle. As the cradle Catholics that most of us are, we have been told since birth that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, second person of the Holy Trinity, one in substance with the Father and the Holy Spirit, in existence from all eternity, and for all eternity. And so the news of Jesus’ resurrection can hardly surprise us. As Peter says in one of his first teachings, “It was impossible that death could keep him in its possession”. And so the surprise element just isn’t there for us.

But with the gentle light of the Holy Spirit, we too can see Jesus announced everywhere in the Old Testament. And we too, can appreciate the reality of his resurrection as the confirmation by God the Father of the truth of everything that Jesus had taught.

In light of this, we see more clearly how the resurrection of Jesus is really the cornerstone of everything that we believe, and of our life as Church. While we are deprived of the surprise element, we remember Jesus’ resurrection with a mixture of relief and joy, because everything else that we believe rides on the reality of his resurrection. As says St. Paul, “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is empty, and empty too, is your faith. But Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.” 1 Co 15,14-20 Everything we believe rides ultimately on our faith in the resurrection of Jesus.

But herein lies the difficulty. Belief in the resurrection of Jesus admits of degrees. It’s perfectly possible to profess it formally, but not really believe it. As a child, I used to enjoy listening to the conversation of the adults, when we visited with our aunts and uncles. Invariably, the topic of those who had passed on would arise. And invariably, the conversation would end with someone heaving a deep sigh and saying something like: “In any case, we don’t where they are. No one has ever come back to tell us what it’s like.” This always puzzled me. Why do they say that? Jesus came back! We have incredibly strong testimony with respect the resurrection of Jesus, but at the end of the day, and my uncles’ and aunts’ conversation confirms this, it is a gift of the Holy Spirit. So once again, we are reduced, if I can put it that way, to prayer. Let us pray in this Easter Vigil/Easter Sunday, from the bottom of our hearts, that we will all be granted the grace to believe with all our hearts, with the certainty and luminosity of Spirit-driven faith, that Jesus is risen from the dead. Everything else we believe rides, ultimately, on this first, fundamental act of faith. May God grant us all this fundamental grace.

Just a brief word on our schedule going forward. Till further notice, we will have the two live-streamed masses with in-vehicle attendance on Sundays, and a live-streamed mass Monday to Saturday with no in-vehicle attendance.

Also, we will explore this week the feasibility of obtaining a radio frequency so that those who come for in-vehicle attendance at mass don’t have to use a lot of data to access the mass online. We will also explore the feasibility of multiplying masses with in-vehicle attendance, to make them available to as many people as possible. More on this next Sunday.

In the meantime, a happy and safe Easter to you all. God bless,

Fr. Guy