Greetings from Fr. Dave

Happy Easter! Our faith in Jesus is founded on his Resurrection. We believe that he is more than a wise teacher, a miracle worker, and a religious figure of his time. He is God!
 

Remember our Christmas message three and a half months ago? (Geepers, how different our lives were then…….) Fr. Hans and I preached about the reality of Jesus being Emmanuel, “God is with us.” No other world religion has God appearing in the flesh, taking on human life in all its frailty, loving so intensely that he took on all our collective human rebellion and disobedience, and forever redeeming it!
 

As the famous hymn in Paul’s letter to the Philippians (2:6-11) states, “He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Paul goes on to exclaim, “Because of this God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bend, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
 

So, we have a God who is not satisfied to be “up there” or disconnected from our daily lives with all our ups and downs. He is with us right now offering to each of us divine Friendship! The power of the Resurrection is at work today — bringing good out of all the hardship and disruption throughout our world with the
coronavirus. Don’t cling to what our old normal was; instead, let’s all be alert to ways the Holy Spirit is bringing new life out of our “new normal.”
 

Just as Jesus was raised to new life on Easter morning, all our deaths, disappointments, let-downs and fears are being raised to new life. Let it happen! Invite it to happen! Watch for it happening! Jesus is real. He is here. He loves YOU. He is waiting for us to say YES to him. Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!
 


Last week, Rose Krause passed away. May her soul and all the souls of the faithful departed, rest in peace.