Pastor's Page:
Christ Is Victor! From Lenten Fast to Easter Feast
April 4, 2010



Our forty day Lenten retreat is completed, and Holy Week has led us from the Last Supper through Good Friday to the victory of Easter and the resurrection. Now the universal church celebrates the triumph of our God over sin and death with one great feast: fifty days of festivity and celebration, culminating in Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit.

The fifty days from Easter Sunday to Pentecost are celebrated as one great Sunday, one great feast day of exultation. On each of the Sundays of the Easter season we will regale in the accounts of the Lord’s resurrection appearances; mysterious and startling appearances that led his downcast and disheartened disciples, witnesses of the crucifixion, from disillusionment to joy.

Throughout this festive season, the Easter "Paschal" candle will be placed prominently in the sanctuary near the pulpit, for the risen Christ has illuminated our world of darkness with his glorious light, triumphant over all that opposes us. The candle is a symbol of the presence of the risen Christ among the people of God.

Fifty days of living in the Easter victory! Luxuriating in it. Fifty days of abandoning ourselves in joyful love and deepening faith as the spirit of God takes hold of our lives! But this Easter feasting is not as the world might understand partying. As one great liturgist of our church, Nathan Mitchell, writes in "the Blessed Pentecost": "It is a time of intensified consciousness, finely tuned awareness, awakened memory. The great fifty days... are not an unwelcome, unrealistic, obligation to "party on," even if we don't feel like it, but an invitation to explore more deeply..., to awaken our memory of God's presence and power in our lives, to look more closely at all the rich and varied textures of creation. In short, (the
50 days) are a season for learning how to say yes in a culture that wants to keep on saying no."

Because of the victory of Christ we can live life more intensely, celebrate love more generously, and die one day more courageously. "Oh death where is your victory, oh death, where is your sting?" Death is no more. It has no more power over us. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ
our Lord! Alleluia!

Peace and love in Christ,
Father Bruce

Transition Website Established
There has been a great deal of discussion about the voluntary separation package and the other changes occurring in the Diocese of Rockville Centre. The Diocese has set up a special transition website that has the latest information. Please visit www.drvc.org and click on the Lighthouse icon.