Who will sing the singular charm of Easter morning, when the countryside finally wakes up from the long torpor of winter, and the sun shines with renewed strength?
It seems, indeed, that nature itself shares in the joy that fills our hearts and sings the alleluia of the Resurrection. On this unique morning all is again possible: no force can oppose Christ, Victor over death. In vain, evil men weave their infamous intentions in the shadows. Their iniquitous projects lie demolished and their heinous plans have fallen away as the stone that had covered the tomb; their ridiculous efforts only make the victory of the Savior more resplendent.
Dear Friends and Benefactors,
Who will sing the singular charm of Easter morning, when the countryside finally wakes up from the long torpor of winter, and the sun shines with renewed strength?
It seems, indeed, that nature itself shares in the joy that fills our hearts and sings the alleluia of the Resurrection. On this unique morning all is again possible: no force can oppose Christ, Victor over death. In vain, evil men weave their infamous intentions in the shadows. Their iniquitous projects lie demolished and their heinous plans have fallen away as the stone that had covered the tomb; their ridiculous efforts only make the victory of the Savior more resplendent.
Joy springs up from this luminous certainty and our souls find a new voice to express, much better than inert nature, our love for Our Lord.
These voices achieve their full completion in the liturgy. Its arresting beauty allows us to penetrate the mysteries of Christ and to live them from within. We cannot, indeed, be satisfied to remain simple spectators before this incomparable drama where God, in His Son, triumphs over Satan's kingdom. Baptism enlists us in this mystery of death and resurrection. From now on, God wants to complete His victory by covering us with His nobility and, overcoming by His grace the infirmity of our nature, incorporate us into Christ. His Omnipotence sets our misery ablaze: the Cross signs our souls with the seal of His mercy, and His Resurrection is the pledge of our life of grace.
Who can frighten us now? The enemy, defeated and chained, cannot oppress any more the people that God has bought at such a high price, nor can his impotent rage stop our ascent. Children of the Crucified Lord, we are born from His pierced side and our life can only be a song of grace that swells and explodes in the victory hymn of the first Easter morning.
Let us go boldly into the struggle. Groaning, the world waits for souls to give witness to the victory of Our Lord by "living in this world as not living in it," because "the figure of this world passes away" and it cannot hold back souls whose impulses come from the Cross and blossom only in the radiance of the divine Resurrection, safe from any stain of sin.
The Christian souls leap to the present struggle, proud to carry the Standard of Christ and to defend it against those who want to cut it down in the person of the Holy Church, Bride of Christ. Identified with Her divine Husband, She knows the long ascent that leads to Calvary and the painful agony of the Cross. But nothing can upset our hope; Easter morning will be dawning soon and our souls will contemplate this new resurrection in which they have always believed, beyond the sorrows of the tomb.
Sursum corda: we walk victorious in this double light of the Cross and the Resurrection.
Fr. Yves le Roux
P.S.: The following text on confession, by Rev. Fr. Perinelle, O.P., will help us to approach with uprightness and confidence the tribunal of grace in order to make a good and holy Paschal Communion.
The Priest Restores, in Christ, the Universal Order
Rev. Fr. J. Perinelle, O.P.
Just as he has given us grace in the cradle, the priest strives, during our whole life, to maintain and develop that grace in our souls, until the day when, in our last illness, he will bring to us - still him - the spiritual remedy of Extreme Unction.
Very often, however, he must absolve us, in the name of Jesus Christ, because too many sins, alas! tarnish the admirable purity to which we were called in Baptism. The sacrament of Penance erases these faults.
Christ willed it thus, He Who came to save what was lost. His arms nailed to the Cross are opened to every misery: "Come to Me, all you who are weighted by and bend under your burden, and I will restore you." He restores us by His Passion, whose purifying virtue the priest transmits to us by absolution. The priestly absolution especially assures us that we are forgiven.
To make sin disappear, it is necessary to be forgiven and vivified again by God. It is also necessary that He condescends to tell this to us, not to leave us in anguish. He does all that, with infinite mercy, by absolution.
The priest, indeed, does not sit at the confessional as a man but as the representative and minister of Christ. By his lips, it is still Christ who absolves us, as He so often did, so tenderly, during His mortal life. We have a blessed certainty of it, because He promised it to us on the evening of His glorious Resurrection.
"Now when it was late that same day, the first of the week, and the doors were shut, where the disciples were gathered together, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst and said: Peace be to you... He said them again: Peace be to you. As the Father hath sent me, I also send you. When He had said this, He breathed on them; and He said to them: Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them: and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained" (Jn. 20:19-23).
This power has been transmitted from century to century, and the priest to whom we confess has received it himself, by these same words, on the day of his ordination. To him also the bishop has said: "Receive the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them: and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained."
Thus, really, in the name of Christ, he purifies our souls of their faults and restores life and peace to them. It is a sublime ministry and the sweetest that could be entrusted to a man in regard to his brethren!
The Cure of Ars knew this well, and the acute awareness that he had of it gave him a heroic courage to fulfill this task... Eighteen hours per day, he listened to the confessions of people coming from every corner of France. He listened, encouraged, forgave. In him could be clearly seen the discernment and the goodness of Christ. And he brought sinners before Christ, Christ crucified. He liked to say: "When we come to confession, it is necessary to understand what we are doing. We could say that we have come to remove the nails from Our Lord." Thus was expressed, in a moving way, the great supernatural reality of the sacrament of Penance, a moving meeting of the merciful Heart of Christ with the contrite heart of the sinner. If only all sinners knew that!
• Taken from La Vie Spirituelle, n° 142. July 1931. pp. 19-23.