4/14/03 Easter Letter

Dear Parish Family:

A blessed Holy Week, and a blessed Easter to all! This past Sunday we celebrated Palm Sunday, and through the liturgy of the Palms we entered the mystery of Holy Week. Our Lenten journey has brought us to this place, and now as we prepare to relive the passion of our Lord, we also set our eyes on his resurrection. Lent reminds us of the times in our lives when we have walked in the desert -- and perhaps this was such a time for you? When we succeed in the journey, it gets us in touch with the need for it, for even our Lord Jesus Christ could not escape it. Jesus was tormented and tempted in the desert. He walked alone, and suffered alone, with only God’s grace to sustain him. Who among us likes the dryness of the desert? None of us do, yet Jesus emerges from that place transformed, empowered to live the life he was called to live. He boldly goes forward knowing that in the end, he would pay with his life for his love of humanity. Fortunately most of us will never have to be faced with the prospect of a literal crucifixion, but still trials and tribulations will come to us. At these times we may experience what we perceive as the absence of God, we may experience loneliness, despair, and abandonment, yet even there God is present. This is the "dark night" of the soul of which St. John of the Cross, so brilliantly wrote about.

When we walk through the desert, we often make the mistake of thinking that God is putting us through a test, that somehow our endurance is being examined. Although these are challenging times in our lives, they are not tests. When Jesus was in the desert, he was tempted, but not tested. In the end, the experience empowered him because through it he discovered his own inner strengths. In his book titled: A Grief Observed,

Anglican author C.S. Lewis writes about his own time of despair after the death of his wife. This work is a painfully honest struggle with God -- about grief -- where he does not hold back any punches. In the end this is what he writes: "God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already, it was I who didn’t." As painful as desert times may be, in the end they reveal to us just what we can be when we open ourselves to grace, and do not run from the desert, or the experience of the cross.

Jesus went forward with the task of serving as a sacrifice for us. He sacrificed himself for us to show us the Way. It is out of love that he did this. In the First Epistle of John, we read these words: "By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." (I John 3:16). It was all about love, and we are called to live in the same love. The power of love can overcome any adversity.

We will move from the darkness of Holy Week, to the light of Easter. On Saturday evening, we will celebrate the Great Vigil of Easter. A small group of us will gather in the Labyrinth garden, to burn the paschal fire that will light our paschal candle. In darkness with only the light of Christ to guide us, we will enter the church. Once in the church with only the light of candles lit from our Paschal candle to illumine our space, we will retell the story of creation, and the story of our redemption. This will mark the movement from darkness to light, where we will proclaim the words: "Alleluia. Christ is Risen. The Lord is risen indeed alleluia." With a joyful noise and the ringing of bells, we will celebrate the power of life over death!!! We will do what the faithful of the church have been doing for centuries, as they celebrated the first Easter liturgy.

This movement from darkness to light, death to life, is what our journey is all about. We have been created to live!!! Ours is a God of LIFE!!! In the end, our Lord is a risen Lord!!!

It is my prayer and hope that the power of Life, the power of Easter, be ours as we enter this season of joyful hope. Jesus has a place in our lives, a most special place, and he is our Good Shepherd. He came to show the Way; dare we follow him into his glorious resurrection? It is my prayer and hope that we do, that each and every single one of us pick up our crosses, and follow our Lord to Golgotha, leaving our crosses behind there, and moving to a place of resurrection in our lives, moving to a place of life. I wish us all, a Blessed Easter!!!

In Grace,

The Rev. Wilfredo Benítez,

Rector

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