Consider it all Joy
Easter Message
by Bishop James A. Murray

As Christians we are connected through our beliefs that Christ’s death and resurrection provide us salvation and an afterlife so amazing our brains can not truly fathom.
       As learned students we know from studying the gospels how transformed Christ’s followers were with the realization that He truly was the son of God. Consider Peter, a fisherman — an ordinary man so filled with doubt that he even denied knowing Jesus. This humanly flawed man became the father of our Church — our first Pope. The rock.
        But as human beings created in God’s image what impact does His sacrifice of His only son have on your life beyond the Lenten season? Consider for a moment how enthralled we become with reports on acts of heroism: a young professional man gives up his kidney to a perfect stranger; another risks his own life to snatch a person from a commuter train. We marvel at their courage and selflessness.
And yet, each one of us has had our life saved by the ultimate act of courage and heroism — Christ’s death on the cross. As John says: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believe in him should have eternal life.” [John 3:16] What if we accepted the idea that we are important enough to die for and allowed that perfect love to guide our perspective in a new way. Imagine the results. Who hasn’t witnessed the transformation of a child who’s been given a word of affirmation or seen someone’s life changed radically by the power of love.
       Not only is the Easter season the time to celebrate our promise of an eternal life but it reminds us that we, as human beings living out Jesus’ work here on earth, have an amazing opportunity to pay back what we have been given by loving each other.
So vital and multi-faceted is the power of love that Pope Benedict XVI devoted his first papal encyclical to the very topic. In Deus Caritas Est he states:
“Indeed, God is visible in a number of ways. In the love-story recounted by the Bible, he comes towards us, he seeks to win our hearts, all the way to the Last Supper, to the piercing of his heart on the Cross, to his appearances after the Resurrection and to the great deeds by which, through the activity of the Apostles, he guided the nascent Church along its path. Nor has the Lord been absent from subsequent Church history: he encounters us ever anew, in the men and women who reflect his presence, in his word, in the sacraments and especially in the Eucharist. In the Church’s liturgy, in her prayer, in the living community of believers, we experience the love of God, we perceive his presence and we thus learn to recognize that presence in our daily lives. He has loved us first and he continues to do so; we too, then, can respond with love.
        God does not demand of us a feeling which we ourselves are incapable of producing. He loves us, he makes us see and experience his love, and since he has “loved us first” love can also blossom as a response within us.” Every single person on earth has been loved and Christ died for each of us. As such, each one deserves the benefit of a love blossoming among the community.
Perhaps one of the greatest examples of selfless love is found in the life and legacy of Mother Theresa. She was born to wealth but called to live as an advocate and supporter of the poorest of poor. One of her most frequently cited quotes is one we can adapt as a daily goal: “In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.”
        God loved us first. Jesus loves us and showed that love while on earth by being the one to do great things. Now we, as a community of believers embraced by that love, can transform the world by doing what Mother Theresa suggests: small things with great love.

Just imagine.