Easter 2024

28/03/2024

God so loved the world
         God loved the world so much … (John 3: 16)

The events of Holy Week leading through to Easter Sunday reflect God’s immeasurable love for all of creation. Every year, as we remember the events of Jesus’ suffering and death, we are called to accept the fact that such betrayal, abandonment, physical and psychological suffering, were his human experience. The Gospels tell us that Jesus, the human person, had a deeply intimate relationship with his God. How could an innocent man, loved by God, experience such unjust treatment? And yet, our faith tells us, that because of love, Jesus took upon himself the evil of the world, and through his death, transformed it. That is what we remember every year during Holy Week.
 

image: iStock.com/rickschroeppel

But It is clear that humanity inflicts oppression and suffering upon itself. Humanity inflicts injustice and pain within the created world, this world that God loves. Transformation is not yet complete. The cosmos and everything within it, including humanity, is engaged in a process of ongoing transformation.

For theologian Karl Rahner, the resurrection of Jesus is the pledge of the perfect fulfilment of the world. The resurrection of Jesus is the realization of a new moment in history, and at the same time a promise that something similarly new will happen to the rest of creation. The resurrection of Jesus, therefore, is a promise that involves not only humanity but the whole of creation.

Even in remembering the events of Holy Week, we know that Easter Sunday morning will come with the proof that goodness and justice prevail. We will be reminded again that love transforms all evil. We will be invited again to turn from sorrow and grief to joy and hope and fullness of life, a life that the grave cannot contain. We will be invited to sing, with all creation – ‘Alleluia, Christ is risen!’

I pray this week that the Cross will not remain for us a Good Friday Cross, holding the dead body of Jesus. May it be truly an Easter Cross, a Resurrection Cross, expressing the transformative love of our God, who loves this world so much!

From the Easter letter of Sr. Susan Flood osu, Prioress General

 

Happy Easter!