THE RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD FROM THE DEAD STRENGTHENS OUR FAITH WITH GREAT HOPE

We are celebrating Easter in which the journey of Lent and the celebrations of the Easter tridum that we are living these days reach their climax. It is the most powerful moment in the liturgical journey of the Church, through which we celebrate our faith. Our Spiritual Father Saint Augustine writes in the Treatise, On Christian Doctrine (1,15): "The resurrection of our Lord from the dead and his ascension into heaven are events that we believe in and which strengthen our faith with great hope. He told us very clearly that he gave his life for us willingly, he who had the power to take it back. So how great is the trust with which we fulfill our hope, we who now believe, while we remember how much he suffered for us even though we didn't believe yet!" With these words Saint Augustine reminds us of the greatness of the gift of Jesus for us and the great provocation that this same gift should put before our experience of faith. How great was God's trust in us! How great was his love!

The great gift of Jesus to us before we were conceived, should arouse in us a genuine spirit of renewal that provokes us to focus on this God that we are called to serve. If He loved us so much, then how much more is it expected that we love, that we give, that we trust. And despite all this in which we believe, how many times do we find ourselves losing our trust in Him because of trivial circumstances. How many times we fall short of our love for Him and for each other and we seem to forget how much He loved us first. How many times do we fail to serve as much as is needed, and forget His unconditional gift for us. How many times do we fail to forgive each other and forget that God was ready to forgive and redeem us, even before we ourselves made the commitment to follow Him.

Despite our fragility, and the circumstances that make us what we are today, Saint Augustine reminds us that these events should "strengthen our faith with great hope". And he continues to tell us that "to comfort us in this journey he gave us a lot of his Spirit, so that even in the trials of this life we ​​are full of hope and his love even though now we are not seeing him; to each of us he gave particular talents for the building of his Church". The experience of redemption that we are celebrating is then directly linked to the hope and love that we have received and that we are called to convey to others. Only then can we convey the real joy of Easter freed from all the burdens we often create in life. Only then can we instil hope in others. Only then will we be faithfully living the experience of the particular call that God has made to each of us.

I wish you and your families a holy Easter. May it be for all of us a strong experience of genuine faith and hope in the Lord Jesus who has given himself for us to the end, and for us rose from the dead!

P. Leslie Gatt osa

Prior Provincial