From The Pulpit: Easter a time to heal and a time to hope

ARCHBISHOP SEAN BRADY is the Roman Catholic Primate of All Ireland

EASTER is the most important feast in the Christian calendar. This may surprise some people who believe the distinction belongs to Christmas.

Christmas is certainly a very important feast because it marks the birth of Jesus Christ.

But Easter celebrates the most important event in history, when Jesus suffered, died and rose from the dead.

He passed from death to life. He set the world free from the slavery of sin and from the fear of death. He led us all into a freedom that will last forever. He became the Saviour of the world.

But what does Easter mean to us?

Each human being is unique and unrepeatable. Each of us is loved by God. He sent his only son so we could have everlasting life because he loved us so very much.

He knows each of us intimately, our joys, our sorrows, our sufferings - the innermost secrets of our hearts. Nothing is hidden from God.

When we celebrate the Easter ceremonies commemorating the suffering, death and resurrection of Christ, we are placing our own bodies and sufferings under the sign of the cross.

It is our way of saying to Christ: "We want to share in the mystery of your bodily dying and rising."

It is our way of expressing the hope that one day God will rise up and transform the poor, sick bodies and our divided world.

Easter is a time of new life and new hope. The earth is waking from its winter slumber, buds are on the trees and the flowers of spring are in full bloom.

The light of the Easter candle is a powerful reminder to us of the sure hope that the spirit of the Risen Lord continues to act in our lives and in our world.

This is a time when we realise that what we yearn for in the depths of our hearts can become a reality.

We long for a safe and peaceful world where people can live in faith to God and to each other.

A world where people can live with dignity, free of fear and intimidation. Everyone is welcome - especially the sick, the weak and the old.

We hope for a world free from corruption and greed, where the Church promotes and proclaims God's endless mercy and justice.

At Easter, we do not simply commemorate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as an event that took place many years ago.

The Risen Christ is with us here and now. His victory over death gives real grounds for hope that every human hunger can be satisfied.

Phrases like "empty dreams", "pie in the sky" and "sweet talk" may well be the responses of some who know the weakness of our condition.

But one of the challenges of Easter is to honestly confront those weaknesses in ourselves.

At Easter we name the forces of darkness present in our world and lives. We ignore them at our peril.

But we should not let them determine and control the course of our lives.

Today we celebrate the victory of Christ over those forces. We celebrate that victory with joy because it points to God's final triumph over every power of evil.

We pray that the light of Christ may dispel the darkness of our hearts and minds. Only Christ gives hope that does not deceive.

The light of Christ is powerful enough to drive out hatred and anger from our hearts.

Only the love of Christ can move hearts hardened by prejudices. The light of Christ can help us to see ourselves as we all are - sinners destined to become saints.

It also helps us see those who differ from us as equal and precious in the light of God.

VERY REV JOHN PATERSON is Dean of Christ Church in Dublin.

MANY more people will gather in church on Easter Sunday than at any other time or on any other day since Christmas Day.

That's a certainty more predictable than winning pounds 2 on a scratch card!

Even those who see little difference in being a baptised member of the church and living a decent life are drawn in some strange way to Christmas and Easter worship.

People who lived at the time of Christ were drawn in the same way. They liked this man who did strange things in their midst and was born in the outhouse of a Bethlehem boarding house.

He was a man of little formal education, yet he was able to teach them in ways they could understand. He was also a healer of the sick, whose skills surpassed those of the doctors of the day.

On the last week of his earthly life, the first Palm Sunday, they even welcomed him into Jerusalem as if he were a king.

Later that week the people realised that those in authority weren't actually too keen on him, so they shouted: "Crucify him!"

But weeks later, three thousand gave their allegiance to him by being baptised. These people knew Easter Day had changed everything.

These are things we have been taught from our earliest days - the fears of Good Friday, the joys of Easter.

But what about the people who lived through the experience of those three days - his mother Mary and the disciples who hadn't actually deserted him?

For them there seemed no certainty on that Friday afternoon that everything would be changed by Sunday evening.

They knew they had seen love crucified on the cross. But for what purpose? What had he achieved?

When they first knew him there had been the promise of a brave new world where justice would overcome evil, love would outlive hate and light overcome darkness.

Yet it just didn't seem to have happened that way. Or has it happened, but in ways we don't always understand?

Christ's closest friends never really understood things either. On Friday afternoon, those who hadn't deserted him could see his physical pain was over.

But it was going to take them longer to see that much more had happened - things that would transform their lives with love if only they had hearts big enough to accept them.

Easter didn't just replace sorrow with joy, it turned sorrow into joy. In Easter, we find the conviction we need to make decisions about ourselves.

In Ireland, the most forgiving people are those who have suffered most in the Troubles of the past 30 years. Those who have been touched little by trouble are often the most bitter.

God never promises to protect us from pain and suffering, only to be with us in them. The families of the two friends callously gunned down in Poynztpass show this only too clearly.

It's only when we pass through the valley of human heart- searching that we will understand the real triumph of Christ. He conquered death and He will help us conquer the deep hates that lie within us.

He can teach us that the love of God is stronger than the power of evil.

There can be no love in the wrong atmosphere. If people have come together to hate, they will hate.

But if people come together loving Christ and seeking to love each other, even the most widely separated will come together.

This Easter, many who don't often attend the church will be there. They will be drawn by some deep, almost inexplicable need - that the love of God is indeed a part of our human condition and that what seemed unbelievable actually did happen.

We will express that hope at every Easter Eucharist across the land as we shout aloud that Christ has risen, Alleluia!

ENDS

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