He is Risen Alleluia! Alleluia!

This past week we began Passion Time with a two-week blitz of Lenten Activities. Casting Nets were here with us for our Lenten Mission on Discipleship and Evangelization. Tony Brandt and Chris Stewart presented a wonderful testimony of their life and faith in Jesus Christ and the ministry they do as his disciples through making more disciples. Their efforts set the stage for the new beginnings that are core to Easter. This past week we have been celebrating Holy Week and in particular the Easter Triduum as we recall the Institution of the Eucharist and Priesthood, The Death of Christ for our Salvation, and the Lord’s Resurrection to a new and glorious life.

And now we begin Easter! Not a single day, nor an octave, not even a fifty-day season ending in Pentecost. Hopefully it’s a new stage in our pilgrim journey of life with the Lord in the church. Easter is the beginning of the true life of the ministry of the apostles experiencing the risen Lord and proclaiming it by the new way of living in his glory. Their testimony shows us the way to believe and then to put that new understanding of the paschal mystery into daily living.

The early church came to believe that Christ is alive and that his conquering of death shows us the way to joy, happiness and fulfillment for us and others. Just as Lent was a common time for the church to prepare for salvation by prayer, fasting and almsgiving; so now this Easter Season is a time to start a fresh. Believing in the Risen Lord is not just about him, it is about us as individuals and as a church. We must be courageous to testify to the truth just as Peter and John and the other apostles would do in Jerusalem, Judah, in Rome, and throughout the Roman World and beyond.

The Acts of the Apostles show the faith history of the early church. It’s amazing to see the things that were done now that Jesus had truly become their Messiah. They knew him from his teaching and miracles, they started to believe in the message, they had their doubts reassured, they saw their failing wiped away. But now they saw the rest of the story, the knew that he was God, they saw his glorious new body, they cast aside their hesitancies and fears. They became true disciples living in the way the master taught them.

Our parish hopefully will enter a New Discipleship Age as we too follow the way of Jesus. We move beyond the limits that we had self-imposed and live as Jesus did: living out our beliefs with ardor and dedication, utilizing the gift of new life.



Father Jim 

Father Jim Henault, MS Pastor