Easter

I want to address myself to you now, all of you who have come to rejoice together with us in the victory of life over death, in the victory of love divine  over human estrangement in a world which is terrified of death, who no longer believes in the victory of love. In a world that now doubts the historical resurrection of our Lord and God Jesus Christ we proclaim that Jesus, the Son of God become the Son of man, who died upon the Cross truly, really rose again from the dead in His flesh, appeared to His doubting and frightened disciples, allowed them to test His bodily resurrection, appeared throughout the centuries to thousands and millions of people who met Him as the living God become the living Man, alive beyond the other side of death. We proclaim His resurrection with faith, with joy because His resurrection means that man is not doomed, that even death  has no power upon Him, that our life in the words of St Paul is hid with  Christ in God, that at the right hand of God Himself is seated Christ incarnate. And that if we want to know how great man is, it is not towards the palaces  of those in power that we must turn our gaze but to the throne of God and see Man enthroned in eternity.

We proclaim the bodily resurrection of  Christ as a promise of our own resurrection, that even when death will have captured us, even when death will have reduced us to ashes, a day will come when we will be called by the living God to live again in our body face to face with the living God risen for our salvation. May this reach our hearts, fill our lives with faith in life and in God, fill our hearts with hope, a hope that no terror, no hopelessness can overcome, fill our hearts with the certainty of being loved of God and with the readiness to love God and to love one another as generously as God has loved us  – with all His life, all His death, all His resurrection. And then the world in which we live will become another world, a world conquered by love, to love. Then, together, believers and unbelievers, sinful men and women and saints will be able to say in the words of the Scriptures, “Thou wert  right, o God, in all Thy ways,” and rejoicing say to one another the words of ultimate victory, “Christ is risen!”

He is risen indeed!

Христос воскресе!

Воистину воскресе!

Христос Анести!

Алифос Анести!

Христос воскресе!

Воистину воскресе!