Easter message from Bishop Wester

Intermountain Catholic

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Father Eleazar Silva, parochial vicar of the Cathedral of the Madeleine, Bishop John C. Wester and Deacon Lynn Johnson process into the Cathedral of the Madeleine at the beginning of the Mass on Palm Sunday. IC photo/Marie Mischel

Alleluia! Christ is risen! Alleluia!

To all in the diocese of Salt Lake City I wish the fullness of Christ’s Easter peace, praying that our risen Lord will deepen within each of us the profound and abiding joy that belongs to those who, through baptism, have died with Christ and are one with him in his resurrection.

In a particular way, I welcome with great joy our elect and candidates into full communion with us as we celebrate Christ’s victory over sin and death. After 40 days of fasting, almsgiving and prayer we enter 50 days of rejoicing and celebration, thanking God our Father for drawing us to himself through his Son, Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit. Without a doubt, we are truly God’s people and "Alleluia" is our song!

One of the striking features of Christ’s resurrection appearances is that his wounds are clearly visible. In fact, the risen Christ invites his followers to "Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have." (Luke 24:39)

In a way, it seems strange that Christ’s glorified body would bear the marks of his cruel passion and death. We would like to think that all that pain and suffering was a thing of the past and pretend that it never happened. But the Paschal mystery, i.e., the suffering death and resurrection of Christ, cannot be compartmentalized. It is one mystery, one life-giving event that contains within it the unspeakable pain of Christ’s passion and, at the same time, the seeds of new life. This is the great, central mystery of our faith: Jesus Christ, our Savior, is constantly turning night into day, darkness into light, sin into grace and death into life. Every aspect of our lives, all that we are, is caught up in Christ’s boundless love and bears the promise of new beginnings at every turn.

Ours is not a faith that says, "Don’t worry, nothing bad will ever happen to you." Rather, our faith says, "Don’t worry, bad things may happen to you, but they are nothing to worry about."

It is only through faith that we can see the empty tomb as a sign that Christ is risen from the dead. It is only through faith that we can hold fast to hope even in the midst of our pain and suffering. Faith teaches us that Christ is always with us, particularly in our darkest moments. In Mark’s narrative of the Passion, it is the centurion who finally proclaims what we had been straining to hear throughout the first 14 chapters of Mark’s Gospel: "Truly this man was the Son of God!" (Mark 15: 39)

The centurion came to believe in the midst of the darkness: "At noon darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon." (Mark 15: 33) Paradoxically, it is in the darkness that God dwells (see 1 Kings 8: 12 and 2 Chronicles 6:1). The same is true for us. In our darkest moments, Christ is with us, leading us to new life. Only with the eyes of faith can we see a way out from our suffering. Only then can we believe that the risen Christ will save us once again. We may not understand it at the time, but we believe that Christ will not abandon us.

Our local Church is no stranger to pain and suffering and death. All too often parents learn that their child was killed in Afghanistan or in a tragic accident here at home. Parishioners worry about losing their employment or their homes. So many times at the prayer of the faithful we are remembering friends who are dealing with life-threatening illnesses. Thousands in our diocese suffer from mental illness, rejection, loneliness, addictions and fear of the unknown. We see many of our immigrants living in the shadows, afraid to go home and afraid to stay in what they would like to call home. Yet in the midst of all this suffering, the light of Christ pierces the darkness and promises new life, new hope and new beginnings. This is not some kind of pie-in-the-sky theology, nor is it a naïve and "Pollyanna" view of life. Rather, it is the firm conviction, born of faith, that our Redeemer lives and that, caught up in his unfathomable love, all will be well, all will be well.

Furthermore, it is this faith that allows us to bring hope to the world. We are called to give witness to Christ’s resurrection and to remind people that the risen Christ continues to breathe life into his Church through the working of the Holy Spirit. In other words, death does not have the final word. We believe that our daily trials and difficulties are subsumed into the greater drama of divine Providence that is always leading to the empty tomb and new life.

During these holy days of Easter, I pray that we will all be a source of life for each other, wounds and all, as we continue to follow Christ, recognizing him in the breaking of the bread. It is worth repeating: death never has the last word – Jesus Christ does! Indeed, He is the Word uttered by God the Father, in the Holy Spirit, calling us out of darkness and into his own, wonderful light.