Easter Message - 2023

Easter is the greatest celebration in the Catholic Church because it is the completion of Holy Week that ends with the resurrection of Jesus.  This means that through the Church’s Easter liturgy, the message ‘Do not look for the living among the dead.  He is not here.  He has risen’ is our celebration that not only has Jesus overcome death, not just for himself, but for all of us.  He is the first ‘to rise’ from the dead and we are to follow him.

For the Christian then, there is no such thing as death in the sense of final extinction.  Our dead are not dead for they share the life of the risen Christ.  They are alive and that is how we should think of them.

Easter is that season of hope which offers humanity a way to live (and to die).  What happened at Easter enables us to let go of our loved ones in faith.  This does not mean that we forget them.  We pray for them and they pray for us.

This is not to say that we don’t still feel the pain of the world, the pain in our families and among our friends and even the pain in our hearts.  But now, thanks to Easter we have a ‘new’ element that has been introduced into our lives.

For me, the truth of the resurrection enables us to deal with the trials of life.  Yes, this is a position of faith, and faith is a gift, but faith ‘works’ wonders in our lives and helps us to come to an inner peace knowing that life is stronger than death, love is stronger than fear and hope is stronger than despair.

May we take note of the resurrection this Easter and always.

He is risen Alleluia, Alleluia.

MOST REV TIMOTHY J HARRIS
Bishop of Townsville
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