Do not be afraid … I know what you are looking for … come and see.”This Easter 2016, the Church throughout the world will echo the angel’s message to the women: Do not be afraid! I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here for he has been raised. Come, see the place. This is the culmination of the Gospel; it is the Good News par excellence: Jesus, who was crucified, is risen! This event is the basis of our faith and our hope. If Christ were not raised, Christianity would lose its very meaning; the whole mission of the Church would lose its impulse. The message which Christians bring to the world is this: Jesus, Love incarnate, died on the cross for our sins, but God the Father raised him and made him the Lord of life and death. In Jesus, love has triumphed over hatred, mercy over sinfulness, goodness over evil, truth over falsehood, life over death.

That is why we tell everyone: “Come and see!” In every human situation, marked by frailty, sin, and death, the Good News is no mere matter of words but a testimony to unconditional and faithful love: It is about our self-denial and encountering others, being close to those crushed by life’s troubles, sharing with the needy, and standing at the bedside of the sick, the elderly, and the outcast. “Come and see!” Love is more powerful; love gives life; love makes hope blossom in the wilderness.

How does this message help us overcome the real fears created in us and around us by the failing of our securities such as declining health, financial hardship, spiritual dryness, social isolation and more? How does it help us overcome the scourge of hunger and anger, aggravated by conflicts and by the immense wastefulness for which we are often responsible? How does this message enable us protect the vulnerable, especially children, women, and the elderly who are at times exploited and abandoned? How does this Good News enable us to care for our brothers and sisters struck by the Zika epidemic throughout the world, and to care for those suffering from so many other diseases spread through neglect and dire poverty? How can we comfort all those who cannot celebrate this Easter with their loved ones because they have been unjustly torn from their affections, like the many persons, priests and laity, who in various parts of the world have been kidnapped? Comfort those who have left their own lands to migrate to places offering hope for a better future and the possibility of living their lives in dignity and with freedom of faith?

This Easter retreat will help us not only respond to these questions, but also prepare us to go and see Jesus, the Risen.

— Father Pothin