He is risen - Photo:canva.com
“Alleluia, the Lord has risen.’ “Truly he has risen.” Many Christians worldwide salute each other with these words on Easter Sunday.
Alleluia is a Hebrew word meaning ‘praise the Lord.’ It is a great word that captures and expresses Easter joy. God’s mysterious plan for the broken world has been fulfilled in the glorious resurrection from the dead of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and saviour of the world. Alleluia.
In rural Ireland, farmers painted a red cross on the eggs their hens laid on Good Friday. They and their families would eat those boiled eggs when breaking their Lenten fast on Easter morning. It indicated receiving new life from the sacrifice made by Jesus on the cross. It was a kind of family Eucharist.
Easter is the most significant feast in Christianity, even greater than Christmas, although the two are closely linked. Our life here on earth is wonderful, but it is lived under the shadow of death. How wonderful that Christ has conquered sin and death and offers us His divine and eternal life.
The Easter vigil is full of the symbols of this new life – the fire in the surrounding darkness outside the church, the Paschal candle that leads the procession into the dark church and our own candles that receive the light from the Paschal candle.
Water, the essential element to life, is used to baptise adults who have deepened their faith in Jesus for a year to become a family of the risen Christ. After baptism, they wear dazzling white clothes and share in the Eucharist, the great sacrament that nourishes God’s life in them.
We share in the joy of these new Christians, the renewal of our baptism promises, and participation in the paschal feast.
The feast of Easter anticipates even the change to cooler, drier weather in Fiji. The love feast we eat with family and friends deepens our sense of community and share life. Even the sports and processions of other religions at Easter mirrors for them the joy that Christians celebrate.
Alleluia
Columban Fr Frank Hoare lives and works in Fiji.
Related links
- Read more from the current e-Kaulotu - March 2023
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