❤️ “Eat whatever you want for Easter, the sacrifice is not in the stomach, but in the heart. They refrain from eating meat, but don’t talk to their siblings or relatives, don’t visit their parents or bother them to attend to them. Don’t share food with the needy, forbid children to see their father, forbid grandparents to see their grandchildren, criticize other people’s lives, beat their wife, etc.. A good barbeque or beef stew won’t make you a bad person, just like a fish fillet won’t turn you a saint. Better seek to have a deeper relationship with God through better treatment of others 🙏🏻 Let’s be less arrogant and more humble at heart. ❤️ ✝️Pope Francis ✝️
Lent is to be concrete, the first step is to desire to open our eyes to reality. The cry of so many of our oppressed brothers and sisters rises to heaven. Let us ask ourselves: Do we hear that cry? Does it trouble us? Does it move us?
Pope Francis
During these weeks of Lent, let us make space for the prayer of silent adoration, in which we experience the presence of the Lord like Moses, like Elijah, like Mary, like Jesus.”
“Let us not be afraid to strip ourselves of worldly trappings and return to the heart, to what is essential,” he said.
Pope Francis reflected on Jesus’ words in the Gospel of Matthew: “When you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret” (Matthew 6:4).
He quoted advice from St. Anselm of Canterbury, an 11th-century Benedictine monk and doctor of the Church, who wrote in 1078: “Escape from your everyday business for a short while; hide for a moment from your restless thoughts. Break off from your cares and troubles and be less concerned about your tasks and labors. Make a little time for God and rest a while in him. Enter into your mind’s inner chamber. Shut out everything but God and whatever helps you to seek him; and when you have shut the door, look for him. Speak now to God and say with your whole heart: I seek your face; your face, O Lord, I desire.”
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
Day 13
Day 14
Day 15
Day 16
Day 17
Day 18
Day 19
Day 20
Day 21
Day 22
Day 23
Day 24
Day 25
Day 26
Day 27
Day 28
Day 29
Day 30
Day 31
Day 32
Day 33
Day 34
Day 35
Day 36
Day 37
Day 38
Day 39
Day 40 Palm Sunday
Maundy Thursday
Good Friday
Easter
Peace be to you!
According to an ancient Russian Orthodox tradition, the day before Easter was devoted to telling jokes. Priests would join the people in telling their best jokes to one another. The reason was to reflect the joke, God pulled on the devil in the Resurrection. Satan thought he had won on Friday, but God had the last laugh on Easter Sunday. Easter is the most joyful day in the Christian year. This is the day when Christians proclaim that death is not the end. The resonance of this event, twenty centuries ago, continues to resound in the Church. Right down to our own time, even in these days of advanced communications and technology the faith of Christians is based on that same news, on the testimony of those sisters and brothers who saw firstly the empty tomb and the mysterious messengers who testified that Jesus, the Crucified, was risen. The resurrection of Christ is not the fruit of assumption or mystical experience: it is an event. Just as the sun’s rays in springtime cause the buds on the branches of the trees to sprout and open up, so the radiance that streams forth from Christ’s resurrection gives strength and meaning to every human hope, to every expectation and every plan. Hence the entire cosmos is rejoicing today, caught up in the springtime of humanity, which gives voice to creation’s silent hymn of praise.
The Easter Sunday invites us to seek the things of light, things that are noble, true, just and things that glorify God. We must seek heavenly things by living like free people and citizens of heaven. The resurrection is a cosmic event, which includes heaven and earth and links them together. It is God’s definitive answer to death. Through Resurrection, God has conquered both sin and death. It is the Risen Jesus Christ who grants us peace. It is He who gives Himself to us in the Eucharist. He forgives us our sins in the Sacrament of Confession and speaks to us through the Sacred Scriptures and through His Church. It is He, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life and He says to us what He said to the Apostles on the First Easter: Peace be to you. It is I. Do not be afraid! (John 20: 19-23).
Easter gives us the guarantee of our own resurrection. Jesus assured Martha at the tomb of Lazarus: “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me will live even though he dies” (Jn 11:25-26). Easter is a feast which gives us hope and encouragement in this world of pain, sorrows and tears. It reminds us that life is worth living. It also gives us strength to fight against temptations and freedom from unnecessary worries and fears. Risen Christ invites us to become transparent Christians, radiating the Risen Lord around us in the form of selfless and sacrificial agape love, mercy, compassion, and a spirit of humble service. The risen Christ is journeying ahead of us towards the new heavens and the new earth (Rev 21:1), in which we shall all finally live as one family, as sons of the same Father. He is with us until the end of time. Let us walk behind him, in this wounded world, singing Alleluia. In our hearts there is joy and sorrow, on our faces there are smiles and tears. Let us faithfully carrying out our task in this world with our eyes fixed on heaven.
Happy Easter to all my dear brothers and sisters!
