Christ, our joy and our hope, is risen, hallelujah!

Dear Brothers and members of the Hospitaller Family of St John of God

The proclamation that has been given for centuries continues to resound in history and nourishes our hope in a world torn by conflict and discord: "Christ, our joy and our hope, is risen, hallelujah!"

This is the good news that fortifies our faith as Christians and makes us courageous evangelisers in the world of health and in places where hope is overshadowed by situations of illness, social hardship and poverty.

I would like to highlight the words of the Sequence, which we will hear on Easter morning in the Eucharistic celebration: "... Death and life have contended in that combat strangely ended! Life’s own Champion, slain, yet lives to reign. Tell us Mary: say what thou didst see upon the way. The tomb the living did enclose! I saw Christ’s glory as he rose! The angels were attesting; shroud with grave-clothes resting. Christ, my hope has risen: He goes before you into Galilee…”, echoing also the words of St Paul: “And if Christ has not been raised, then empty is our preaching; empty, too, your faith” (1Cor 15:14), and I would add: 'empty also is our hope'.

Dear Brothers and Sisters, the Holy Easter of the Lord that we are celebrating is for us and for those close to us, a light in the darkness of our time. Society, so rich in things, means and opportunities, suffers from a terrible poverty of relationship, love and hope, although it is precisely these things that are the most important for a fulfilled and dignified human life. Inequalities and social injustices still seem to have the upper hand, despite the process of globalisation, with its well-known advantages and disadvantages. The Lord's Easter invites us to hope and to believe despite everything that change is possible, that it is possible to transform pain into joy, that it is even possible to overcome death.

We need to set out on a journey to get out of our conflicts, out of our habits, securities and established convictions, to set out on new paths towards a future illuminated by the Risen Lord. The Easter of the Lord unleashes hope and illuminates our future, inviting us to walk, to move forward and not to be carried away by nostalgic temptations, that lead us to persist in old paths that lead nowhere.

The Risen One must become for us faithful and for those who are open to hope, the horizon that opens up the beautiful and the new that awaits us and projects us towards open dimensions with a transcendent and spiritual gaze on reality, also open to the absolute of God, who always wants our good.

Holy Easter gives me the opportunity to invite the entire Hospitaller Family of Saint John of God to become the voice of this message of Easter life and hope, as Saint John of God lived it.  His passionate love for the sick, his experience of mercy received and given, made him a man of hope, open to God's future for every man and in his personal history. His ability to live in reality, facing it with a new and renewing gaze, came from his profound relationship with the Risen Lord. I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that his spirituality is an Easter spirituality, because in Him, he received the strength and courage to dare to live and act in a way that transcends human thinking. His thoughts and actions were inspired by the certainty that only in faith in the Risen Lord does our life and the lives of those we assist find full fulfilment.

I take my cue again from the thought of a Church father, St Gregory of Nyssa, who stated in an Easter homily: “Another generation has appeared, another life, another way of life, a change in our very nature”.

Dear Brothers and Sisters, we must convince ourselves, that only in the horizon of the Risen Lord can we have the courage to place ourselves in reality with a new outlook, with a heart open to the future, with a drive and an audacity capable of overcoming every obstacle that prevents us from living the new experience that Christ is asking of us today for our Family. Let us not lack courage, the Risen Lord testifies to us that in the name of God, everything is possible.

I conclude with the words with which Jesus greeted his disciples on Easter Eve: "Peace be with you" (Jn 20:21). May this peace that comes from above inhabit our hearts, our communities, our families and all our Apostolic Works.

Together with my Council I wish a Holy Easter of serenity, joy and peace.

Brother Pascal Ahodegnon, O.H.