The Catholic Leader - 21 April 2019 - Issue 5548

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The Catholic Leader, April 21, 2019
Wishing our members,
staff and employers
a very happy Easter
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An initiative of the Knights of the Southern Cross
Wishing you a happy and joyous
Easter from Southern Cross Care Qld
May your Easter be blessed and you celebrate with
a heart filled with peace, joy and happiness.
The Executive Director and Staff
of Brisbane Catholic Education
wish you all the blessings
of the risen Christ this Easter.
Easter Messages
A POPULAR poem entitled “The
Four Candles” by Aino Makoto
highlights the importance that hope
plays in our lives.
It has the four candles (Peace, Faith, Love,
Hope) in conversation, with the first three in turn
acknowledging that they are no longer valued by
today’s world.
One by one, the light of these
three candles diminishes and
then goes out completely.
A child suddenly enters the
room and, seeing the three
candles no longer burning,
begins to cry, “Why are
you not burning? You are
supposed to stay lit until the
end.” Then the fourth candle
speaks gently to the child,
“Don’t be afraid, for I am
Hope, and while I still burn, we
can re-light the other candles.”
It is not difficult for us to recognise
the ways in which candles of peace, faith and
love are being extinguished in our world today
as we are bombarded with shocking revela-
tions of sexual abuse and horrendous scenes of
devastation as ideologies of hate are expressed
in such violent massacres as the recent attack on
the Muslim community in Christchurch.
With Hope, regardless of how bad things look
and are, the flames of Peace, Faith and Love can
be re-ignited once again.
In his homily at the Easter Vigil in 2018, Pope
Francis presents the mystery of Christ’s resur-
rection as a message of hope for a world that has
lost faith.
“He is here… he is risen. This is the message
that sustains our hope and turns it into concrete
gestures of charity. How greatly we need to
let our frailty be anointed by this experience.
How greatly we need to let our faith be revived.
How greatly we need our myopic horizons to be
challenged by this message. Christ is risen, and
with him he makes our hope and creativity rise,
so that we can face our present problems in the
knowledge that we are not alone.”
It is never too late to lend a helping hand to
those in need.
Caritas can be contacted at www.
or on 1800 024
413.
Our donations bring hope
to many people empowering
them to create a brighter
future for themselves.
In the midst of the
darkness of war, hostility,
devastation caused by natural
disasters, ill health and strug-
gles of daily life, we know the
light of the Resurrection.
We are an Easter people, a people
of hope.
We all know the story of that first Easter
morning when the tomb was found empty. We
know that Jesus rose from the dead and trans-
formed the tears of anguish on Good Friday into
incomparable joy.
We are called to be bearers of that Good News
into a world that desperately needs that hope.
Let us rejoice and be glad. Christ is risen.
He is indeed risen.
With the candle of hope alive in our own
hearts, let us light our world with the candles of
peace, faith and love.
I wish you every blessing in this wonderful
season.
Bishop Robert McGuckin
of Toowoomba
Christ is risen, rejoice and be glad
He is risen: The risen Christ is depicted in
this 19th-century painting titled “The Resur-
rection of Christ” by Gebhard Fugel.
Photo: cns
FROM the beginning of the liturgy on Holy
Saturday night when all the natural light has
faded, the prayers reminds us, “May the light
of Christ rising in glory dispel the darkness of
our souls and minds.”
And when the new Easter Candle is held
high and the clear statement is made for all to
hear, “The Light of Christ.”
The Easter liturgies invite us all to experi-
ence the life of God entwined with our own
lives.
This year, we carry a sadness in our hearts as
we remember our church and our people who
are in pain.
The liturgy of Good Friday poignantly
invites us with Mary to the foot of the cross
where we sit with her as she watched her own
son die.
It is with Mary; we all sit at the foot of the
cross and feel the pain of all who have been
abused and injured and isolated.
But the strong words of the liturgy shouts to
us and reminds us that it is Christ who over-
came death, who rises in glory and it is only
through Him that we too find healing for our
pain and our loss.
We can invite him to include all within our
Church and our people so all may find
the light of Christ.
In the yards of our churches
around the fire, may the new
Easter light of Christ’s glory
dispel the darkness of our souls
and minds.
As we hear the words, “Christ
our light”, let us be sure in our
hope that the Risen Christ walks
with us through the year, bringing
Let us be sure in our hope that
the Risen Christ walks with us
all of us healing; enabling us to
reach out and include everyone
within the circle of God’s love,
and find in us in our church, a
welcoming and safe home.
Bishop Michael McCarthy
of Rockhampton