Dear Sisters, Associates and Friends,
Easter blessings to each of you!
We gaze at an empty tomb, one that was new, then blessed by Jesus’ body and was empty again. It was not the same tomb. It was transformed by the presence and grace of Jesus’ YES to the mission of his Father.
In this year’s Gospel on Easter Sunday, we read about the experience of emptiness and fear of Mary of Magdala, Peter and the disciple Jesus loved, when they see that Jesus’ body is gone. But later when greeting the resurrected Jesus, they are full of hope and new life. The cross, the empty tomb and Jesus meeting his disciples after the resurrection, are images of the paschal mystery or the mystery of ‘passing over’, which we celebrate today.
We, too, experience our own ‘passing over’ or transformations on our journey of faithfulness to God, each time we say our YES again. These transformations may also include an experience of emptiness sensing that what we once held onto as truth, is no longer. The emptiness has significant meaning as part of our “passing over” to a new truth, to more hope and with greater freedom offering a deeper YES to our God. (Jn: 8,32)
In our “passing overs”, what is the truth we have embraced and of what have we had to let go?
Today, during the Easter Season, we celebrate our faith and hope, initially born of the witness of these first disciples to the empty tomb and of their deeper relationship with the Resurrected Jesus.
May we each be blessed with renewed hope this Easter, a “biblical hope which is the certainty that things finally have a victorious meaning no matter how they turn out”. (R. Rohr)
Wishing you Easter Joy and days full of hope!
With love,
S. Sally Hodgdon
S. Mariaelena Aceti
S. Ieda M. Tomazini
S.Philo Pazhuruparambil
