Rejoice and Be Glad!
Written by Fr. Ben Hawley, SJ on Easter Sunday
Living a human life is harder than it looks. Young people have the great advantages of youth, idealism, energy, courage, and a sense that no mountain too high, no challenge too great, no barrier too obstructing. As we live, strive and struggle, we can sometimes find that in fact our lives can seem increasingly difficult and even impossible to navigate – friends, family, work, politics, and economics not fulfilling our needs or desires as we had hoped. At this point our Catholic faith, in particular, Jesus’ Resurrection from sin and death, reminds us that God knows our needs, and our ongoing reflection on our experience shows us that God is already acting to help us. God simply asks us to say Yes to God’s invitation to help us.
But is God big enough to handle the challenges we face, and is God’s guidance enough to enrich our lives beyond what we can achieve on our own? These are essential questions. Following Jesus through his public ministry in the gospel readings in Ordinary Time, we are invited to hear the message that, Yes, God’s presence gives us a richness of life we cannot achieve for ourselves. Following Jesus through his Lenten journey to his destiny in Jerusalem, which we relive moment by moment in the Triduum, we are invited to experience the reality that, Yes, God’s action can lift us through life’s challenges, privations, and hardships to a better life beyond – both in this life and in the afterlife.
In other words, in the celebrations of the Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday we come to experience the reality that God’s life breaks through death, God’s love breaks through opposition or heartache, and that our lives of faith gather their substance from the reality of God’s existence and active pursuit of us. So, I invite you not only into the celebration of this great day but also in the following eight days – the Octave of Easter – and then into the remainder of the Easter Season – up to Pentecost Sunday, May 24 this year. In God’s world there is always more joy than sorrow, more Easter than Lent. Let us all rejoice and be glad.
****************************
Fr. Benjamin Hawley, SJ
Fr. Ben has served as Pastor and Director of Catholic Campus Ministry since August 2010. As pastor his ministry focus is helping the parish be “the field hospital for the wounded,” per Pope Francis, where people discover Jesus’ liberation and healing. Following his ordination in June 2000 Fr. Ben served as President of Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School of Indianapolis until 2006. Prior to becoming Catholic in 1988, Fr. Ben worked for the Agency for International Development, the foreign assistance program of the US Government.
Email: pastorstmarys@gmail.com