“Or are you unaware that we who were baptized
into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
We were indeed buried with him through baptism
into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead
 by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.
For if we have grown into union with him through a death like his,
we shall also be united with him in the resurrection.”  (Romans 6, 3-5)

Dear brothers and sisters, cursillistas from all over the world:

For us, Christians, this month comes bringing a breath of new life, peace, hope, resurrection! It comes bringing the breath of Easter! It comes reminding us once more, through the Apostle’s voice, of our identification with our Lord Jesus Christ, dead and resurrected!

We all know that Easter is the feast of feasts because it is the central celebration of our faith, it is the reason for our faith itself, it is the logical and theological foundation as well as the explanation of our faith – that is, if any explanation for the faith is possible at all! “And if Christ has not been raised, then empty (too) is our preaching; empty, too, your faith... and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain; you are still in your sins.” (1Corinthians 15, 14.17).

For Jesus’ followers, the experience of the Resurrected and their identification with Him has been on for more than two thousand years. It is precisely by living so radically and intensely that experience, by keeping alive the flame of faith and hope, by generously accepting that “through the baptism we have been buried with him and in his death”, that millions of them – our brothers and sisters, companions in the same journey – gave their lives, sacrificing themselves, either with heroic gestures or in their daily existence! And they did so in order to prove to the world that it is worth ‘Christifying’; it is worth ‘dying with Him to resurrect with Him’, so that men, women, youth, children and elderly could now ‘have life and have it more abundantly’ (John 10,10), and reach with Him the Resurrection and the definitive Kingdom.

My dear brothers and sisters, let us be attentive to the context of our post-modern, globalised, twenty-first-century culture. Let us keep our eyes wide open, let us tune our ears to hear what surrounds us – from the most ordinary and trivial facts which are close to us and which sometimes we ignore or pretend to ignore, up to the most conflicting events, which take place far away from us, by which we think we are not directly affected, but which the mass media bring into our houses and into the centre of our concerns, our commentaries, our fears, our hopes.

Despite many ‘signs of life’, we can notice and even touch the numerable ‘signs of death’ present in the hearts and the lives of people, inserted in the post-modern culture, manifested in the behaviour and postures of our society.

It is exactly for this mankind ‘divided in continuous disagreement’ (Preface of II Eucharistic Prayer on Reconciliation), that we – the followers of the Resuscitated in the twenty first century – are called to announce the new life, the Resurrection, the peace and the hope. Hope of a ‘new earth’ and of ‘new heavens’ (Isaiah, 65, 17).

We naturally keep asking ourselves: how to celebrate Easter – that is Resurrection and new life – in an ‘atmosphere’ like this, in these circumstances? Where and in whom shall we find the roots of hope? How shall we become ‘signs of light’ amidst the darkness?

On this Easter, let us review the history of our salvation. And with the strength of Jesus Resuscitated and the light of the Holy Spirit, let us be brave enough to give five steps:

First step – let us stop for a while and try to share with Jesus Crucified his injuries, his thirsty, his feet and hands stuck to the cross, the pain of the abandon by his friends and even by the Father.

Second step – in communion with Him, let us identify and feel in solidarity the pains of mankind – men, women, youth, children, elderly – who are either near us or far from us; let us sympathise with the miserable and the poor, the victims of injustice and the excluded, the dead and injured in the always unjust wars.

Third step – let us endeavour to make the rich experience of faith lived by so  many brothers and sisters who preceded us in the painful road of the Calvary, but who continuously fed, in their hearts and works, the strength of their faith in the Resurrection and the new life in Christ Resuscitated.

Fourth step – like Mary Magdalene and the other women who, coming back from the sepulchre, did not find the body of the Master, let us raise our eyes and perhaps we would hear, both afraid and joyous: “Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but he has been raised!” (Luke 24, 5).

Fifth step – still like Mary Magdalene, the other women and some disciples who “then returned from the tomb and announced all these things to the eleven and to all the others.” (Luke 24, 9), let us be missionary of the Resuscitated, let us go out too to announce. Announce the Way, the Truth and the Life! From now on, each one in his or her own environment, let us be ‘signs of light’!

Has a new time arrived for us – the time of ‘martyrdom’, that is, of the actual testimony of the Calvary and the Resurrection? Shall we be prepared to the mission for which we have been called, either as crucified or resuscitated? It is important and fundamental that we not be disheartened. Despite everything, many marvellous works and actions are being implemented in the entire world for the justice to prevail, the peace to reign, the hope to shine! At last: Christ resuscitated! Alleluia! Alleluia!

I want to convey to you all, my best wishes for a Holy Easter! And also to ask you all to pray that the Spirit of God assist me and all the leaders of the CM in Venezuela to whom I will be preaching a spiritual retreat during the coming Holy Week, in Caracas.

Fraternal greetings from your friend, brother and server in our Lord Resuscitated,

Father José Gilberto Beraldo
Ecclesiastic Counsellor