My Dear Friends,

A HAPPY, HOLY AND BLESSED EASTER TO YOU ALL!

Here in England, Easter has a much lower profile than Christmas, and even we may forget that this is the most important day of the year for us as Christians! Unfortunately, in our secular world the Easter egg is the only thing that people focus on and how many people are even aware that this has anything at all to do with Christ and His Resurrection? And yet, those Easter Eggs are symbols of new life, and the resurrection is about new life, the new life of Christ in which we are called to share.

However, this great festival day is not just about a personal hope of eternal life, and similarly, it’s not just about putting things right. Certainly, the Exsultet, which many of us heard sung at the Easter Vigil, talks about the sin of Adam, and says, “O happy fault, that earned for us so great, so glorious a Redeemer!” But our whole relationship with God has been transformed by the events we have just celebrated, for through these events everything has been made new in Christ. And if our lives and our whole world have been transformed, then we are called to be different people. We are called to be people of joy and hope, people who share that message of joy and hope with those around them, for all those around us are the brothers and sisters for whom Christ died.

Our world speaks to us of the new life of Christ, a world to be cherished and recognised as God’s world, a world to be seen as a gift and treated accordingly. As we see, and perhaps consume to many Easter eggs, let them remind us of the true meaning of Easter. The new life which has come, once and for all, through the Death and Resurrection of Jesus. A happy and blessed Easter to you all – Christ is risen, He is risen indeed.