Easter Sunday 2013


Spring

Mary Oliver


Faith
is the instructor.
We need no other.

Guess what I am,
 He says in his
incomparably lovely
young-man voice.
 
Because I love the world
I think of grass,
I think of leaves
and the bold sun,
 
I think of the rushes
in the black marshes
just coming back
from under the pure white
and now finally melting
stubs of snow.
 
Whatever we know or don’t know
leads us to say;
Teacher, what do you mean?
But faith is still there, and silent.

Then He who owns
the incomparable voice
suddenly flows upward
and out of the room
and I follow,
obedient and happy.

Of course I am thinking
the Lord was once young
and will never in fact be old.

And who else could this be, who goes off
down the green path,
carrying His sandals, and singing?



Wayne Neal :  Jesus at Jerusalem
In Oscar Wilde's play Salome, when Herod hears reports that Jesus of Nazareth has been raising the dead.

" I do not wish him to do that, " says Herod. " I forbid him to do that. I allow no man to raise the dead. This man must be found and told that I forbid him to raise the dead."

The author T. Wright says, " There is the bluster of the tyrant who knows his power is threatened, and I hear the same tone of voice not just in the politicians who want to carve up the world to their advantage, but in the intellectual traditions that have gone along for the ride. Wright says : "But Wilde's next haunting line is the real crunch, for us as for Herod. 

" Where is this man ?" demands Herod.

" He is in every place, my lord," replies the courtier, " but it is hard to find him."

Holy Saturday Vigil Mass in Holy Night Of Easter 2013

Scripture readings for the Saturday Easter Vigil Mass are here 

Update : Pope Francis Easter Vigil Homily Full Text  
Click here
 

Women Arriving At The Tomb by He Qi
Image source 

Gospel Luke 24 1-12

 At daybreak on the first day of the week
the women who had come from Galilee with Jesus
took the spices they had prepared
and went to the tomb.


They found the stone rolled away from the tomb;
but when they entered,
they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.



Easter Morn He Qi
Image source


While they were puzzling over this, behold,
two men in dazzling garments appeared to them.
They were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground. 



Image b He Qi.

They said to them,
“Why do you seek the living one among the dead?
He is not here, but he has been raised.


Cartoon by Steve Breen. Source


Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee,
that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners
and be crucified, and rise on the third day.”


And they remembered his words.



Easter morning III He Qi
Image source

Then they returned from the tomb
and announced all these things to the eleven
and to all the others.


The women were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James;
the others who accompanied them also told this to the apostles,
but their story seemed like nonsense
and they did not believe them.



 Image Source- by Liz Lemon Swindle.

Image of Peter and John running to tomb - this is from the Day Mass of Easter Sunday - a different Gospel account with two disciples running to the tomb.

 
But Peter got up and ran to the tomb,
bent down, and saw the burial cloths alone;
then he went home amazed at what had happened.



Awake, O Sleeper
I order you, O sleeper, to
awake.





I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell. 

Rise from the
dead, for I am the life of the dead. 


Rise up, work of my hands, you who
were created in my image. 


Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in
me and I am in you.


 Together we form only one person and we cannot be
separated.


From The Office of Readings for Holy Saturday. (Ancient Homily)


This Is The Night

A wonderful reflection from Irma Zaleski

 from Lay Apostolate of Madonna House

which begins :

"Of all the wonderful moments that the Church provides for us in its
great annual cycle of feasts and celebrations, there is one that that
moves me perhaps the most deeply. That is the moment during the Liturgy
of Holy Saturday, when the deacon stands by the burning flame of the
Paschal candle and proclaims the great hymn of wonder and praise: the
Exultet.



   
"Rejoice, O Mother Church, Exult in glory!... "This is
the night, when Christians everywhere, washed clean of sin, are restored
 to grace and grow united in holiness. This is the night when Christ
broke the chains of death and rose triumphant from the grave! This is
the night…."


Click here for the rest of the article.

The video below is the sung version of the revised translation of the Exultet with embedded lyrics.

 Click here for my accompanying post on the lighting of the Paschal Fire and Candle at the Holy Saturday Easter Vigil Mass with the same video of the sung Exultet.





He Makes All Things New 
 Andrew Peterson

I love this song....


Come broken and weary, 
come battered and bruised
my Jesus makes all things new,
 all things new 


Come lost and abandoned, 
come blown by the wind
He'll bring you back home again, 
home again

Chorus: 

Rise up oh you sleeper awake
The light of the dawn is upon you
Rise up oh you sleeper awake
He makes all things new
All things New 

 Come frozen with shame, 
come burning with guilt
my Jesus, He loves you still,
 loves you still

Chorus 

The world was good, 
the world is fallen, 
the world will be
redeemed, 
The world was good,
the world is fallen, 
the world will be
redeemed

So hold on to the promise,
 the stories are true, 
My Jesus makes all things new
 (The Dawn is upon you)

Chorus




The Great Chain Of Being

"St. Bonaventure (1221– 1274) took the intuitive genius of St Francis of Assisi and spelled it out into an entire philosophy.
God is “within all things but not enclosed; 
outside all things but not excluded; 
above all things but not aloof; 
below all things, but not debased.” 
Bonaventure was the first to speak of God as one “whose centre
 is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.”
Therefore “the origin, magnitude, multitude, beauty, fullness, activity and order of
all created things” are the very “footprints” and “fingerprints” (vestigia) of God, according to this Doctor of the Church.

Now that is quite a lovely and a very safe universe to live in. 
Welcome home!"

Richard Rohr, Adapted from Hope Against Darkness (p. 136)


"In every man and woman, a wound is opened by failures, humiliations, a
bad conscience.
It may have been opened at a time when we needed
infinite understanding and no one was there.


Transfigured by Christ, the
 wound turns into a locus of energy, a creative wellspring from which
will arise communion, friendship and understanding."


Brother Roger of Taize 

 From Fifth Responsorial Psalm of The Holy Saturday Vigil Mass



"You will draw water joyfully from the springs of salvation."


 Jesus and The Woman At The Well
Image source



Now The Green Blade Riseth 




I have heard The hymn "Now The Green Blade Riseth," played like a dirge
 but this one played on hand bells bursts with energy and life -
 to me it conveys beautifully the excitement and joy of Easter Resurrection.
(Note- The camera work on this is distinctly dodgy.)




Lyrics

Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain,
Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.


In the grave they laid him, Love whom men had slain,
Thinking that never he would wake again.
Laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen:
Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.


Forth he came at Easter, like the risen grain,
He that for three days in the grave had lain.
Quick from the dead my risen Lord is seen:
Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.


When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain,
Thy touch can call us back to life again;
Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.



Thanks be To God. Alleluia !!
Wishing everyone Easter Blessings, 
Peace, Love, Hope and Joy.

Easter Vigil Paschal Fire Candles and The Exultet


At the opening of the Easter Vigil on Easter Saturday everyone gathers outside the church and a "new fire" is lit and blessed.  Although today was sunny there was still a brisk biting breeze so I think we'll all be trying to get as near to the fire as possible this evening. The way the weather's heading, I think I'll be bringing the whole brazier into church with me.


The flame of the Paschal candle symbolizes the Risen Christ as light of the world and his presence in the midst of his people. The Paschal candle is sometimes referred to as the "Easter candle" or the "Christ candle."

 The term "Paschal" comes from the word Pesach, which in Hebrew means Passover, and relates to the Paschal mystery of salvation. 

The tall white candle in many ways signifies the Divine pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night that lead the Israelites in their Exodus from slavery in Egypt.
The equivalent of the Paschal candle in the Eastern Orthodox Church is the Paschal trikirion which differs both in style and usage.


The  Paschal candle is the largest candle in the worship space. In most cases today the candle will display several common symbols:
  1. The cross is always the central symbol, most clearly identifying it as the Paschal candle
  2. The Greek letters Alpha and Omega signify that God is the beginning and the end (from the Book of Revelation)
  3. The current year represents God in the present amidst the congregation


  1. Five grains of incense (most often red) are embedded in the candle (sometimes encased in wax "nails") during the Easter Vigil to represent the five wounds of Jesus: one in each hand, one in each foot, and the spear thrust into his side.
 







In the medieval church Paschal candles often reached a stupendous size. 
The Paschal candle of Salisbury Cathedral was said to have been 36 feet tall.

Paschal Candle
Paschal Candle (Photo credit: Lawrence OP)


The priest traces the symbols on the Paschal candle, saying words similar to: "Christ, yesterday and today, the beginning and the ending. To Christ belongs all time and all the ages; to Christ belongs glory and dominion now and forever. Amen."

The Paschal candle is the first candle to be lit with a flame from this sacred fire, representing the light of Christ coming into the world.

 This represents the Risen Christ, as a symbol of light and life, dispelling darkness of death. As it is lit, the priest says words similar to: "The light of Christ, rising in Glory, dispel the darkness of our hearts and minds."










Then everyone processes into the church led by the Paschal candle. The candle is raised three times during the procession, accompanied by the chant "The light of Christ" to which the assembly responds "Thanks be to God".

 Following the procession the Exultet is chanted, traditionally by a deacon, but it may be chanted by the priest or a cantor. 

The Exultet concludes with a blessing of the candle: Below is a very brief extract of the old Exultet, which I prefer to this revised version here.  

Many more chants and mp3 recordings can be found  here.



Accept this Easter candle,
a flame divided but undimmed,
a pillar of fire that glows to the honor of God.
For it is fed by the holy melting wax, which the mother bee brought forth
to make this precious candle.
Let it mingle with the lights of heaven
and continue bravely burning
to dispel the darkness of this night!
May the Morning Star which never sets
find this flame still burning:
Christ, that Morning Star,
who came back from the dead,
and shed his peaceful light on all humanity,
your Son, who lives and reigns for ever and ever.
Amen.
The video shows the lyrics along with the full sung version and revised translation of the Exultet with congregation responses...



In some traditions the base of the candle may be ritually immersed in the baptismal font before proceeding with the remainder of the service.

This candle is traditionally the one from which all other lights are taken for the Easter service.

How Do You Make a Paschal Candle ?
Great video here 

This priest makes his own. Pope Francis would approve methinks :-))

Good Friday / Easter Saturday Waiting


 Image source

Creighton University has some useful online resources in preparation for the Easter Vigil here


The traditional site believed to be where Jesus was buried in Jerusalem, Israel.





Live TV Easter Services At The Vatican

I have never seen so many people hungry for news from Pope Francis and events in Vatican. 

See previous post here for video of Good Friday Celebration of The Passion Of The Lord and text of homily.

You may want to bookmark this site as it has You Tube Live TV Streaming Broadcasts and Schedule for the forthcoming Easter Events --- Click here


Good Friday Passion of Our Lord Video Homily Vatican Full Text

  From Vatican Radio :

"In silent procession, wearing red vestments, Pope Francis made his way down the nave of St Peter’s basilica as the sunset over the dome on Friday evening. 

Full Video of Service below

 

There before the High Altar, he lay prostrate in prayer. 



This was the opening act of the liturgy of Our Lord’s Passion, the central commemoration of Good Friday, the memorial of Christ’s suffering and death for the salvation of mankind.

Emer McCarthy reports:

"The Holy Father stood as three deacons, two Franciscans and a Dominican, chanted the account of the Passion according to St. John.


 As is tradition, the papal preacher, Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, delivered the Good Friday Sermon, this year titled "Justified as a Gift through Faith in the Blood of Christ".


I have highlighted one section of this below in red that jumped out at me.
If this is to be the new direction for our church then this is amazing !!

 He began by describing the Easter Triduum as the ‘high point’ of the current Year of Faith: “Today we can make the most important decision in our lives: to believe… that Jesus died for our sins and rose again for our justification”. Unlike Adam and Eve, he added, we must not hide from the presence of God, because of our sin. Instead we must recognize our need to be justified; that we cannot justify ourselves.

Fr. Cantalamessa continued that faith in the Risen Christ, like satellite images and infrared photography, helps us see world in new light. 


 It helps us to see beyond misery, injustice; because we know “in Christ dead and risen, the world has reached its final destination” a new heavens, a new earth have begun.

The Papal preacher then turned his attention to the Cross as a powerful tool for Evangelization.

He noted that while the Cross sometimes separates unbelievers from believers, seen as madness by some and the ultimate symbol of love by others, “in a deeper sense it unites all men”, because “Christ died for everyone”. Thus, evangelization is a mystical gift that comes from the cross of Christ. It is not a conquest, not propaganda; it is sharing gift of God to world through Christ.

Citing Kafka, Fr. Cantalamessa said we must do everything to prevent Church from becoming a structure that impedes the Gospel message with dividing walls, ‘starting with those that separate the various Christian churches from one another, the excess of bureaucracy, the residue of past ceremonials, laws and disputes, now only debris’.

The Franciscan Friar concluded: “We must have the courage to knock them down and return the building to the simplicity and linearity of its origins. This was the mission that was received one day by a man who prayed before the Crucifix of San Damiano: "Go, Francis, and repair my Church".


Below we publish the official text of the 2013 Good Friday Sermon in St. Peter's Basilica, preached by Capuchin Friar Raniero Cantalamessa, Preacher of the Papal Household:

JUSTIFIED AS A GIFT THROUGH FAITH IN THE BLOOD OF CHRIST

“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, but they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith in his blood. He did this to show his righteousness [...] to prove at the present time that he is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus”(Rom 3:23-26).


We have reached the summit of the Year of Faith and its decisive moment. This is the faith that saves, "faith that overcomes the world" (1 Jn 5:5)! Faith – the appropriation by which we make ours the salvation worked by Christ, by which we put on the mantle of his righteousness. On the one hand there is the outstretched hand of God offering man His grace; on the other hand, the hand of man reaching out to receive it through faith. The "new and everlasting Covenant" is sealed with a handclasp between God and man.
We have the opportunity to make, on this day, the most important decision of our lives, one that opens wide before us the doors of eternity: to believe! To believe that "Jesus died for our sins and rose again for our justification" (Rom 4:25)! In an Easter homily of the 4th century, the bishop pronounced these extraordinarily modern, and one could say existentialist, words: “For every man, the beginning of life is when Christ was immolated for him. However, Christ is immolated for him at the moment he recognizes the grace and becomes conscious of the life procured for him by that immolation” (The Paschal Homily of the Year 387 : SCh, 36 p. 59f.).

What an extraordinary thing! This Good Friday celebrated in the Year of Faith and in the presence of the new successor of Peter, could be, if we wish, the principle of a new kind of existence. 


Bishop Hilary of Poitiers, converted to Christianity as an adult, looking back on his past life, said, "before meeting you, I did not exist".
What is required is only that we do not hide from the presence of God, as Adam and Eve did after their sin, that we recognize our need to be justified; that we cannot justify ourselves. 


The publican of the parable came to the temple and made a short prayer: "O God, have mercy on me a sinner". And Jesus says that the man returned to his home "justified", that is, made right before him, forgiven, made a new creature, I think singing joyfully in his heart (Lk 18:14). What had he done that was so extraordinary? Nothing, he had put himself in the truth before God, and it is the only thing that God needs in order to act.
* * *
Like he who, in climbing a mountain wall, having overcome a dangerous step, stops for a moment to catch his breath and admire the new landscape that has opened up before him, so does the Apostle Paul at the beginning of Chapter 5 of the letter to the Romans, after having proclaimed justification by faith:


“Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we
boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.
And not only that, but we
also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,
and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,
and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Rom 5: 1-5).



Today, from artificial satellites infrared photographs of whole regions of the Earth and of the whole planet are taken. How different the landscape looks when seen from up there, in the light of those rays, compared to what we see in natural light and from down here! I remember one of the first satellite pictures published in the world; it reproduced the entire Sinai Peninsula. The colours were different, the reliefs and depressions were more noticeable. It is a symbol. Even human life, seen in the infrared rays of faith, from atop Calvary, looks different from what you see "with the naked eye".

"The same fate”, said the wise man of the Old Testament, “comes to all, to the righteous and to the wicked...I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, wickedness was there, and in the place of righteousness, wickedness was there as well"(Ecc 3:16; 9:2). And in fact at all times man has witnessed iniquity triumphant and innocence humiliated. 


But so that people do not believe that there is something fixed and sure in the world, behold, Bossuet notes, sometimes you see the opposite, namely, innocence on the throne and lawlessness on the scaffold. But what did Qoheleth conclude from all this? " I said in my heart: God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for everything" (Ecc 3:17). He found the vantage point that puts the soul in peace.

What Qoheleth could not know and that we do know is that this judgement has already happened: "Now”, Jesus says when beginning his passion, “is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.
And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people
to myself"(Jn 12:31-32).


In Christ dead and risen, the world has reached its final destination. Human progress is advancing today at a dizzying pace and humanity sees new and unexpected horizons unfolding before it, the result of its discoveries. Still, it can be said that the end of time has already come, because in Christ, who ascended to the right hand of the Father, humanity has reached its ultimate goal. The new heavens and new Earth have already begun. 


Despite all the misery, injustice, the monstrosities present on Earth, he has already inaugurated the final order in the world. What we see with our own eyes may suggest otherwise, but in reality evil and death have been defeated forever. Their sources are dry; the reality is that Jesus is the Lord of the world. Evil has been radically defeated by redemption which he operated. The new world has already begun. 


One thing above all appears different, seen with the eyes of faith: death! Christ entered death as we enter a dark prison; but he came out of it from the opposite wall.


He did not return from whence he came, as Lazarus did who returned to life to die again. He has opened a breach towards life that no one can ever close, and through which everyone can follow him.

 Death is no longer a wall against which every human hope is shattered; it has become a bridge to eternity. A "bridge of sighs", perhaps because no one likes to die, but a bridge, no longer a bottomless pit that swallows everything. "Love is strong as death", says the song of songs (Sgs 8:6). In Christ it was stronger than death!

In his "Ecclesiastical History of the English People", the Venerable Bede tells how the Christian faith made its entrance into the North of England. When the missionaries from Rome arrived in Northumberland, the local King summoned a Council of dignitaries to decide whether to allow them, or not, to spread the new message. 


Some of those present were in favour, others against. It was winter and outside there was a blizzard, but the room was lit and warm. At one point a bird came from a hole in the wall, fluttered a bit, frightened, in the hall, and then disappeared through a hole in the opposite wall.

Then one of those present rose and said: "Sire, our life in this world resembles that bird. We come we know not from where, for a while we enjoy the light and warmth of this world and then we disappear back into the darkness, without knowing where we are going. 


If these men are capable of revealing to us something of the mystery of our lives, we must listen to them". The Christian faith could return on our continent and in the secularized world for the same reason it made its entrance: as the only message, that is, which has a sure answer to the great questions of life and death.

* * *
The cross separates unbelievers from believers, because for the ones it is scandal and madness, for the others is God's power and wisdom of God (cf. 1 Cor 1:23-24); but in a deeper sense it unites all men, believers and unbelievers.


 "Jesus had to die [...] not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God"(cf. Jn 11:51f). The new heavens and the new Earth belong to everyone and are for everyone, because Christ died for everyone. 

The urgency that comes from all this is that of evangelizing: "The love of Christ urges us, at the thought that one has died for all" (2 Cor 5:14). It urges us to evangelize! Let us announce to the world the good news that "there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because the law of the spirit which gives life in Christ Jesus has delivered us from the law of sin and death" (Rom 8:1-2).

There is a short story by Franz Kafka that is a powerful religious symbol and takes on a new meaning, almost prophetic, when heard on Good Friday. It's titled "An Imperial Message".


 It speaks of a king who, on his deathbed, calls to his side a subject and whispers a message into his ear. So important is that message that he makes the subject repeat it, in turn, into his hear. Then, with a nod, he sends off the messenger, who sets out on his way.

 But let us hear directly from the author the continuation of this story, characterized by the dreamlike and almost nightmarish tone typical of this writer:
" Now pushing with his right arm, now with his left, he cleaves a way for himself through the throng; if he encounters resistance he points to his breast, where the symbol of the sun glitters. But the multitudes are so vast; their numbers have no end. If he could reach the open fields how fast he would fly, and soon doubtless you would hear the welcome hammering of his fists on your door. 


 But instead how vainly does he wear out his strength; still he is only making his way through the chambers of the innermost palace; never will he get to the end of them; and if he succeeded in that nothing would be gained; he must next fight his way down the stair; and if he succeeded in that nothing would be gained; the courts would still have to be crossed; and after the courts the second outer palace; and so on for thousands of years; and if at last he should burst through the outermost gate—but never, never can that happen—the imperial capital would lie before him, the center of the world, crammed to bursting with its own sediment. Nobody could fight his way through here even with a message from a dead man. But you sit at your window when evening falls and dream it to yourself”.

From his deathbed, Christ also confided to his Church a message: "Go throughout the whole world, preach the good news to all creation" (MK 16:15). There are still many men who stand at the window and dream, without knowing it, of a message like his. John, whom we have just heard, says that the soldier pierced the side of Christ on the cross "so that the Scripture may be fulfilled which says 'they shall look on him whom they have pierced"(Jn 19:37). In the Apocalypse he adds: "Behold, he is coming on the clouds, and every eye will see him; they will see him even those who pierced him, and all the tribes of the Earth will lament for him "(Rev 1:7).

This prophecy does not announce the last coming of Christ, when it will no longer be the time of conversion, but of judgment. It describes the reality of the evangelization of the peoples. In it, a mysterious but real coming of the Lord occurs, which brings salvation to them. Theirs won't be a cry of despair, but of repentance and of consolation. This is the meaning of that prophetic passage of Scripture that John sees realized in the piercing of the side of Christ, and that is, the passage of Zechariah 12:10: "I will pour out on the House of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and consolation; they will look to me, to him whom they have pierced".

The evangelization has a mystical origin; it is a gift that comes from the cross of Christ, from that open side, from that blood and from that water. 


The love of Christ, like that of the Trinity of which it is the historical manifestation, is "diffusivum sui", it tends to expand and reach all creatures, "especially those most needy of thy mercy." 

Christian evangelization is not a conquest, not propaganda; it is the gift of God to the world in his Son Jesus. It is to give the Head the joy of feeling life flow from his heart towards his body, to the point of vivifying its most distant limbs.

We must do everything possible so that the Church may never look like that complicated and cluttered castle described by Kafka, and the message may come out of it as free and joyous as when the messenger began his run.


 We know what the impediments are that can restrain the messenger: dividing walls, starting with those that separate the various Christian churches from one another, the excess of bureaucracy, the residue of past ceremonials, laws and disputes, now only debris. 

In Revelation, Jesus says that He stands at the door and knocks (Rev 3:20). Sometimes, as noted by our Pope Francis, he does not knock to enter, but knocks from within to go out. To reach out to the "existential suburbs of sin, suffering, injustice, religious ignorance and indifference, and of all forms of misery."


As happens with certain old buildings. 


Over the centuries, to adapt to the needs of the moment, they become filled with partitions, staircases, rooms and closets. The time comes when we realize that all these adjustments no longer meet the current needs, but rather are an obstacle, so we must have the courage to knock them down and return the building to the simplicity and linearity of its origins. 

This was the mission that was received one day by a man who prayed before the Crucifix of San Damiano: "Go, Francis, and repair my Church".

"Who could ever be up to this task?" w
o
ndered aghast the Apostle before the superhuman task of being in the world "the fragrance of Christ"; and here is his reply, that still applies today:


 "We're not ourselves able to think something as if it came from us; our ability comes from God. He has made us to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; because the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life"(2 Cor 2:16; 3:5-6). 

May the Holy Spirit, in this moment in which a new time is opening for the Church, full of hope, reawaken in men who are at the window the expectancy of the message, and in the messengers the will to make it reach them, even at the cost of their life."