CFN – Christ is Risen; He is risen indeed! That is the joyful proclamation of Christians around the world this morning.
The forty days of Lent, with its sacrificing, penance and almsgiving, have given way to the greatest feast on the Christian calendar, Easter, the Resurrection of Jesus. During the Triduum of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter, Christians are united to Christ and share in the merits of Christ’s Passion, Death and Resurrection, with the resulting promise of eternal life to those who believe and follow Him.
In his first Easter Urbi at Orbi message, Pope Francis shared:
Christ is risen! I would like it to go out to every house and every family, especially where the suffering is greatest, in hospitals, in prisons … Most of all, I would like it to enter every heart, for it is there that God wants to sow this Good News: Jesus is risen, there is hope for you, you are no longer in the power of sin, of evil! Love has triumphed, mercy has been victorious! … So this is the invitation which I address to everyone: Let us accept the grace of Christ’s Resurrection! Let us be renewed by God’s mercy, let us be loved by Jesus, let us enable the power of his love to transform our lives too; and let us become agents of this mercy, channels through which God can water the earth, protect all creation and make justice and peace flourish. Pope Francis is his Easter message to the world.
The full text of the Holy Father’s message can be found online here.
Archbishop of Canterbury – Church of England
In his first Easter message, the Archbishop of Canterbury had this to say:
We have to know God as well as human beings, or we are left with cynical despair. The disciples also had a wrong view of God. They did not understand that Jesus must die and must rise from the dead. Human disaster thus became ultimate disaster. Justin Welby
The full text of his message can be found on his blog.
Don Smith reports on a variety of topics, notably good news items as well as social justice issues.
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Happy Easter. The washing of the feet is done in tradition in my husband’s country of Lebanon as well as visiting 7 churches.
Don, Thanks for a wonderful article. Dawn