Dear Fellow Brothers and Friends,

In this Easter Season, we would request that individually, we take ample time off our ever- busy life to reflect that we were created freely out of God’s love. An amazing love that filled us with light, love and life.

However, humanity sinned, and we keep on sinning. In our disobedience, we knowingly separated ourselves from the Father’s love causing everyone to fall into darkness and bringing about our death. In his tender love and mercy, God sent his Son to save us, to die for us, to forgive us, to heal us, to love us the way no one else could.

Jesus, taking on our human condition, brings light to our darkness and life to our deadness. He makes us a new creation in the Father’s love. This is the true cause for our joy and the reason for our gladness for this Easter Season.

We rejoice for we have been reunited to the love of the Father, through the saving work of his Son, in the grace and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. By sharing in the Passion and Death of our Lord, we share in his Resurrection. We rise with him in newness of life. Through Jesus, we have become beloved children of God, a new creation, children of the light, children of eternal happiness and peace. Our challenge now is to stay close to Jesus so the darkness does not creep back into our lives. We do this by continuing to walk with Christ and making fasting, prayer and almsgiving part of our daily routine, part of our daily life. We fast from those things that pull us away from God and pull us back into darkness; back into the empty tomb.

We dedicate more quiet time to prayer in order to remain intimately present to the Lord to share our thoughts, feelings and concerns with him. We continue to give ourselves to the Lord in loving obedience to him and in loving ministry to those in need. We continue to walk with our Risen Lord and allow him to be the food that feeds and sustains us, the nourishment for our journey back home. Nourished by Christ through these gifts, we can respond as the Disciples did when they saw the empty tomb: they believed, they shared, they loved as Christ loved them. So let us rejoice and be glad, for we have been enlightened by Christ. Let us continue to keep the Passion of Christ alive in our hearts and remember all that the Father has done to resurrect us to eternal life simply because he loves us.