From the Rector
Dear Fellow Mazenodians,
Celebrating Easter is filled with brightly coloured eggs, lollies and pictures of rabbits and chicks. Families make an effort to love and gather together in joy! There might be travel involved across this beautiful state and country and there may also be travel overseas.
Regardless of how you celebrate Easter, don't forget the real reason for the holidays. We are invited year after year to reflect on the life, death and importantly, Resurrection of Jesus and how it might impact and connect with our lives. We also are asked to keep in our thoughts and prayers, those for whom Easter is a tougher time of the year because of absent family members.
The season of Easter reminds us that LIFE is bigger than death and that as a result of the cross and resurrection of Jesus, an invite was made for all of us to eternal life. Jesus said that he is the resurrection, he is the way, he is the truth and he is the life. Jesus never overpromised and under delivered and he never ever broke a promise.
These are the some of the major beliefs of the Catholic Christian Faith and are shared with other Christian Churches. Over the course of this week, that we call Holy Week, there will be a number of opportunities to share in these celebrations.
Within this week will be Holy Thursday, Good Friday (Stations of the Cross and at 3:00pm The Passion of the Lord), Holy Saturday (Easter Vigil) and of course Easter Sunday.
I sincerely encourage you to try and attend with family members, if you are able, and if you are unable, because of distance or circumstances or any other reasons, I encourage you to light a candle, or offer a gesture of care, or appreciate beauty, or be grateful for something.
Now, our generation is being called to be people of hope in a very uncertain and difficult time. St Eugene de Mazenod OMI had a profound moment of Grace on Good Friday. He genuinely felt as though Jesus love personally reached his heart and it compelled him to reach out and begin the Oblates. Good Friday truly is good for us, but not so good for Jesus, even though he fully forgave everyone.
To assist in your preparation for a deeper Easter I share the following:
Here are eight thought-provoking quotes that can help you understand what Christ did for us on an even deeper level.
1. Jesus said: "I am the resurrection. Anyone who believes in me, even though that person dies, will live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die." - John 11:25-26
2. "A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act." - Mahatma Gandhi
3. "God loves each of us as if there were only one of us." - St Augustine
4. "If humanity had its way, the plan of redemption would be an endless and bloody conflict. In reality, salvation was bought not by Jesus' fist, but by His nail-pierced hands; not by muscle but by love; not by vengeance but by forgiveness; not by force but by sacrifice. Jesus Christ our Lord surrendered in order that He might win; He destroyed His enemies by dying for them and conquered death by allowing death to conquer Him." - A.W. Tozer
5. "Easter says you can put truth in a grave, but it won't stay there." - Clarence W. Hall
6. "Easter was when Hope in person surprised the whole world by coming forward from the future into the present." - N.T. Wright
7. "The joyful news that He is risen does not change the contemporary world. Still before us lie work, discipline, sacrifice. But the fact of Easter gives us the spiritual power to do the work, accept the discipline, and make the sacrifice." - Henry Knox Sherrill
8. "Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and Alleluia is our song." – Saint Pope John Paul II
Apart from all of these wonderful quotes, on behalf of the entire Oblate Community , we wish you a happy, holy and blessed Easter.
You are loved.
Take Care
Fr Michael Twigg OMI
Rector