My Dear People of God,
The great Easter season is upon us, which is a time for us to take a moment to reflect and celebrate our life's journey to God. This year our reflections and celebrations are going to be a bit different in the Church's history as our world is being ravaged by the Corona virus pandemic. Because of this, we are prevented to gather together as a community in our beautiful church and its serene environment. Instead, we are glued to our computer, television, ipad, and cell phone to watch our priests going through the rituals alone. This is not what anyone wanted but is necessary. May I therefore encourage all of you to be part of the celebrations, by actively and reflectively participating in the Mass online. Though we are not physically in His presence, God knows our innermost intentions. The Easter Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday) is the center of the Church's year and reaches its climax with the Mass of the Paschal Vigil.
Holy Thursday commemorates Christ's gift of Himself in the Eucharist. The Passover (Ex 12:8) foreshadowed Christ's Last Supper, where Christ Himself gives new meaning by becoming the paschal lamb sacrificed to God; the lamb that takes away the sins of the world. On this night too, our Lord presented to His Church a gift of the priesthood, with the command "do this is in memory of me". The Lord gave his people the dignity of a royal priesthood (1PT 2:9) from which the ordained ministers derived their ministerial priesthood. Finally, Christ offers us an example of service to one another by washing his disciples feet which beckons us all to learn from his humility and service to one another. The Christian must be selfless like Christ who obediently accepted death on the cross for our sake, "greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13).
Good Friday offers us an opportunity to ponder on the suffering and death of Jesus. Isaiah 53:4 sums up the reason of Jesus' death for us, "yet it was our pain that he bore, our sufferings he endured". We thought of him as stricken, struck down by God and afflicted".
Good Friday therefore encourages us to recognize suffering, pain, grief and death as part and parcel of our human condition. As Jesus shared in our human conditions while in the garden of Gethsemane to Golgotha, we too may go through this in our journey to the true home.
Holy Saturday, the night of difference! The night when the risen Christ conquers sin and death. This is the night when first you save our fathers; you freed the people of Israel from their slavery and led them dry shod through the sea. This is the night when the pillar of fire destroyed the darkness of sin! (From the Exultet). At night we are conquerors with Christ. We are invited to renew our baptismal promises and once again reject sin as a condition of our salvation.
In summary, this is what we celebrate. May each of you be renewed through this Holy Season and may the risen Christ bring us a new vision: a new faith; a new purpose and a new relationship with Christ and the Church. The one who sat on the throne said "behold, I make all things new" (Rev 21:5). We will come out of our present circumstances stronger, united, and focused on our faith knowing that the Risen Christ is with us. Happy Holy Week! Happy Easter!
Fr. Augustine Twum Obour, Parochial Vicar