Bulletin column from April 4, 2021-Easter Sunday

Dear Friends at Saint Frances Cabrini Parish and Saint Mary’s Immaculate Conception Parish:

Praised be Jesus Christ! Christ is Risen, He is Risen Indeed! A blessed Easter to all of you from myself, Father Carlos Londono, and all of our staff members.

One cannot help these days to make mental comparisons between our current situation and the one we were in a year ago, especially as we pass through significant milestones such as Easter itself. Easter of 2020 was unlike any we had been through in a long time, in the midst of “shelter at home,” the prohibition of public Masses and gatherings, and under advisement to avoid family gatherings of any type. There was a heavy and pervasive sense of fear that dominated even the smallest details of our lives.

One positive aspect of that situation was that it threw the core message of Easter into a very clear and sharp relief: without the Resurrection, we truly had, and have, no hope. The knowledge that Christ’s Resurrection had overcome every tribulation imaginable was able to get us through the bleak limitations of last Easter. Without this conviction, one only had despair. Easter of 2020 was powerful in that we truly had to choose to believe in it.

This Easter of 2021 will once again not be as “normal” or as crowded as our pre-Covid ones were, so in that way it is a difficult reality to face. That said, one cannot help but think that it is a great deal better than last year’s. Knowing that, we celebrate this Easter with real gratitude that God has blessed us so abundantly, vowing to him that we will not take the Mass or the Sacraments for granted ever again.

Perhaps this is a small insight into the experience of the Apostles and closest followers of Jesus on the first Easter Sunday. They did not have any prior Easters for comparison obviously. Rather, their point of comparison was Good Friday itself, two days earlier, when they were convinced they had lost everything at the death of Jesus. To encounter him again alive would have doubtless been an opportunity to decide they would not take his presence for granted ever again. When something, or someone precious has been found again after being lost, one learns not to take it for granted anymore and one clings to it with renewed vigor and devotion.

To be back for Mass this Easter is to cling to the Eucharist, and to the Mass, with renewed vigor and devotion because we know that just last year, we did not have it. After being forced away from the Mass for well over two months, it is difficult to imagine any circumstances that would make us decide to now stay away from it on our own. Any earthly reason we can conjure up fails in comparison to what we know the Eucharist to be, and how starved we were without it only a year ago.

Without the Eucharist we die. Without Easter we just die and there is nothing further after this short life. For all that might still be out of the norm this Easter, for sure we are blessed because we can once again gather for the Mass and for the Eucharist. What was lost, what was taken from us, what was dead has now been restored and raised. This realization should bring us true and deep Easter joy. A blessed Easter!