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Easter 2008 My dear Sisters, At the start of every New Year, good wishes and greetings abound, expressing our deep-seated aspirations and our quest for happiness. Everywhere, all over the world, these greetings are messages of peace, joy and happiness. This year, our New Year Greetings likewise included the message of the Jubilee Year of St. Paul which we started with the Opening Celebration last January 25, on the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, our Patron. On that particular day, the 4,000 Sisters of St. Paul all over the world, in a harmonious spirit of Communion lifted up their songs of praise and thanksgiving as well as their joyful hope for the future that opens up new avenues for all. On that day, it can be said that a breath of love descended upon the entire Congregation. With profound gratitude, in union with you all, I give thanks to God for all the wonders that he has accomplished throughout our history. Most of all, I thank Him for this new page of history that He gives us to write on today, guided by one and the same Holy Spirit of Easter and Pentecost who indicates the path for us to follow. What is this path to happiness that we seek? Through the mystery of his Incarnation and Paschal Mystery, Jesus showed us this path. At his birth, he became one with us in our humanity. He came to tell us how to live our lives. The Paschal Mystery, which is the mystery of his death and resurrection, reveals Jesus’ love for his people. It is a love that moves him to give his life for them: “Greater love has no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends.”[1] “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”[2]The path to happiness is a path of faith and hope that make us welcome the God of love into our lives. It can be reached by the way of conversion to which Jesus invites us from the beginning of his ministry. The Church reminds and invites us to this conversion on Ash Wednesday: “Repent and believe in the Gospel”[3]. To be converted means to turn back to God and let him become part of our lives. It means realizing and admitting to ourselves that we are going on the wrong direction, and then taking the decision to return to Him, along the right path.Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, Paul has walked along this path. We are called to follow him on this road to conversion, likewise along the path of vocation and in his spiritual experience with the Risen Christ. Paul’s Conversion took place on the road going to Damascus. There, he encountered the risen Christ. Blinded by the light, he fell to the ground, heard a voice and understood this whole experience as a divine election - an inner call, God’s call. In the Scriptures, this call is always a personal, insistent call repeating the name of the chosen one: Samuel, Samuel… Saul, Saul… Who are you, Lord? “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.[1]” These words of Jesus took the most important place in Paul’s being and life. His conversion happened so suddenly, swiftly and decisively. His heart took a complete turnaround. He changed direction and “pursued the race in an attempt to take hold of the prize for which Christ Jesus took hold of him”[2] “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.” Jesus, Son of God thus identifies himself with the Christians, the members of Christ whom Paul persecuted in his passionate zeal. From that time on, the Christians understood, in the light of the resurrection, that the path taken by Jesus - the same path we take when we walk with him - is the path that leads to Life. “The Gospel is not merely a communication of things that can be known – it makes things happen and is life-changing.”[3] Paul changed his life because he saw the Lord, because he met the Risen Christ: “Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.”[4] “Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?”[5] Paul recognized in the person of Jesus, the Messiah and the Risen Lord. And for him, the entire Law became one commandment in the Love of God and the love of neighbor[6]. Christ’s law is a law of love. “Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.” [7] Henceforth, Paul’s vocation will be to proclaim the Gospel. “Set apart for the Gospel of God,”[8] he leaves everything and tirelessly travels all over the world, going to the pagans, founding new churches and announcing Jesus, the Son of God.[9] Jesus says that proclaiming the Gospel is the mission of the one who is sent. “I must preach the good news of the Kingdom of God to the other cities also; for I was sent for this purpose.”[10] Paul, perfect imitator of Christ, affirms this – “If I preach the Gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me; Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!”[1] [1] Jn 15,13 [2] Jn 13,1 [3] Mc 1,15
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We who have had this spiritual experience of an encounter with Christ, are we capable of journeying with our brothers and sisters along this path? “On fire with apostolic zeal and following the example of St. Paul who accepted to lose all for the sake of Christ, let us set aside comforts and securities; let us listen to the calls of the world. Let us be creative and daring to seek and to commit ourselves to the new ways of evangelization.”[2] God’s word is effective and incisive[3] and for Paul, preaching it means going towards others with hope so as to discover with them, in their very own place and at the heart of their own existence the presence of the Risen Lord who always precedes us. God’s grace is ever present and Christ’s Spirit has been bestowed to all men. In his spiritual experience of the Risen Christ, Paul focuses his gaze on the Paschal Mystery. Being seized by Christ, Paul becomes aware that to conform his life to that of Christ demands a total gift of self. “I am alive, yet it is no longer I, but Christ living in me. The life I am now living, I live in faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.”’[4] His encounter with the Risen Christ seized him throughout his life that he gives himself as example to others: “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”[5] “Like our first Sisters, our spiritual experience of an Easter encounter with the Risen Christ stirred us to look deep into our hearts, and like them, we have answered “yes” to the Lord who continues to call us today. Let us follow him along the Gospel road.”[6] - In the light of a personal and community discernment, am I ready, like St. Paul, to be profoundly disturbed so as to be converted and change my life’s orientation? [7] - Each day, Christ makes himself available for encounter in the Scriptures, particularly in the Gospel and in the Letters of Saint Paul.[8] How does God’s Word influence my life? “Christ our Paschal Lamb has been sacrificed; let us therefore celebrate the festival!” [9] But a beautiful celebration needs a careful preparation, so let us listen to Saint Paul our Patron and Model and learn from his teachings concerning the inner dispositions that will prepare us to celebrate the coming Easter feast. “Throw out the old yeast so that you can be the fresh dough, unleavened as you are. For our Passover has been sacrificed, that is, Christ. [10] The language used by the Apostle in the above citation refers to a Jewish practice whereby every Jewish woman, in obedience to the law, [11]thoroughly examines every nook of the entire house searching for every tiny piece of bread in order to completely get rid of fermented bread so as to celebrate the Passover, worthily using only pure unleavened bread. In the recent past, in Christian households especially in the rural areas, it was a tradition to do a general cleaning before Easter by removing all broken and old utensils and objects in the house so that at Easter, everything is new and entire, without any chink. Saint Paul sees a symbolism in this: The Christian too, ought to clean the interior house of his heart to destroy all that belong to the old era of sin and corruption thus preparing himself to celebrate the Easter feast “with the unleavened bread of purity and truth.” In other words, we should celebrate Easter in purity and holiness, completely freed from the fetters of sin.[12]. The Passover that the Lord asks of us is the Passover of conversion, that we break away from sin and purify ourselves of the old yeast- the yeast of the “old man” in us- in order that we may put on Christ just as Paul clothed himself with Christ..[13] The Passover is a passage that we have to make. “Passing over” is also making that passage from the exterior to the interior. It means going out of our very selves, losing oneself, and “losing all in order that we may gain Christ.”[14] Mary is the personification of Christian interiority herself. She carried the Word – God’s Word- in her womb. This is the Word that she conceived in her heart as she “pondered these things in her heart” and interiorized them.[15] Let us ask the Virgin Mary to obtain for us the grace to go through this new Passover - of passing from exteriority to interiority; from the din and blare to silence; from distraction to meditation and from the world to God. The Lord is truly risen! Let our songs of joy ring, Alleluia! The Sister Assistants, the Secretary and the Treasurer join me in greeting you a joyful Easter Celebration with Saint Paul.
Sr. Myriam de Ste. Anne Kitcharoen Rome, March 23, 2008 [1] 1 Co 9 :16 [2] CA 2001 p. 27 [3] Cf . He 4: 12 [4] Ga 2: 20 [5] 1 Co 11: 1 [6] (AC. 2007 p. 3 [7] Cf. AC 2007, p. 17 [8] AC 2001 p. 17 [9] 1Co 5 :7-8 [10] 1 Co 5 : 7 [11] Ex 12 : 15 [12] Raniero Cantalamessa : ‘Le Mystère Pascal’ [13] cf. Gal 3, 27 ; Rom 1,14 [14] Ph 3 : 8 [15] cf . Lc 2 : 19
[1] Ac 9,5 [2] Cf. Ph 3,12 [3] Cf. Spe Salvi, p.6, N° 2 [4] 1 Co. 15 :8 [5] 1 Co 9: 1 [6] cf. Mt 22: 37-40 [7]Ga, 6: 2 [8] Rom 1: 1 [9] cf. Gal 1: 15-17 [10] Lc 4: 43
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