Brothers and sisters in the Assumption:
It’s hard to compare the joy of Easter with anything else. Compared to Christmas, for example, it seems less accessible somehow, less connected to the familiarities of family and birth and straightened circumstances. If God draws near to us at Christmas, touching base with all the recognizable markers of our human existence, at Easter the familiar gives way to something so new that our language is caught short in giving an account of it.
A life no longer shadowed by death, what can that be?
But it is precisely this discontinuity with our customary modes of thinking and acting, together with its transcendence of anything to do with human invention, that give rise to the distinctive character of Easter joy. Even our alleluias are an expression of a joy that defies the boundaries of the merely rational. Death has been swallowed up by the greater power of life. Alleluia!
As members of the Assumption family, the hope of new life is made real throughout the province: the appointment of three new pastors and local superiors in Mexico; a new pastor and superior at Montmartre; a newly renovated residence on the Assumption campus for our active and retired religious; a new president at Assumption University; the prayerful preparation for the General Chapter and the additional changes that will come in its wake. Where there is life, there is movement and change – witness the ongoing work with migrants at the border.
We give thanks, as religious and lay Assumptionists, for the opportunities to serve our brothers and sisters in need. May our efforts at building up the Kingdom throughout the province be given hope and strength by the Easter mystery we celebrate.
With fraternal affection,
Fr. Dennis