WORD 2day: Easter Tuesday 2017

The Shape of Easter is Heart

18th April: Acts 2:36-41; Jn 20:11-18

If someone asks me to represent Easter with a shape, I would draw a heart! Yes, Easter is a matter of the heart. Youngsters often ask me this curious doubt: why did Jesus choose to appear to Magdalene first. I would say, he had no other choice, because she was the first one to go in search of Jesus, the most passionate of all Jesus' disciples, one who loved Jesus with the whole of her heart. Her heart was filled with Jesus and she yearned for Jesus and Jesus appeared to her! What a privilege! It was granted because of the heart, because of her love. 

Jesus was seen by only those who loved Jesus! Magdalene, then the close disciples, then the eleven...it was a matter of the heart. Precisely that is the reason people were cut to the heart when Peter spoke to them of Jesus. They were cut to the heart and so they understood Jesus and his call - they were baptised. 

Today, if we wish to meet Jesus, the Risen Jesus, then we need to prepare our heart. We need to be cut to the heart, to encounter Jesus truly. When we close our heart, we would never get to see the Risen One. Yes, the shape of Easter is heart. Open it wide and the Lord will abide!

WORD 2day - Easter Monday 2017

The Colour of Easter is Green

17th April: Acts 2:14,22-33; Mt 28:8-15

Green is the colour of life! New life - that is what Easter stands for. We are Easter people; people of life, people of new life, people of eternal life. There is always a group of people in the world who are against life and anything that upholds life. The Gospel today also speaks of a people who are determined to stifle life by all means or any means, whereas there is the Holy Spirit in the first reading instilling new life into the apostles. 

Jesus' rising to life is a call to new life, a life that is lived in its fullness, in spite of the culture of death that is prevalent all around us. Violence and Conspiracy, Neglect and Indifference, Hatred and Enmity... these are spread in abundance by persons and groups. However good we may be, there is always a force against us to put us down or hate us or threaten us or discourage us. Would we give up being good? Would we give up being life-giving persons? We would not if we are a Easter People.

Let us colour our lives green! Let us be life giving people, whatever the circumstances be! Jesus lives, and we will live, let us love, live and let everyone live! Let us go green!