Words From Fr. Poecking: Easter Sunday, April 5, 2015

There is a question I have asked in various school and CCD classes over the years: “What is the most important holiday of the year?” Often the children will answer “Christmas.” Some of them are rather surprised when I tell them that the right answer is Easter. Christmas has presents, and all the decorations go up weeks in advance – with the stores starting to push Christmas some time around the Fourth of July. We cannot make the same kind of push for Easter when we have our observance of Lent. But Easter is the highlight of the year, for the Resurrection of the Lord is the greatest event in all human history.

In the earliest days of the Church, Easter was the celebration. The annual feast was the one holy day that the Church observed, and the faithful repeated the celebration of the Lord’s Resurrection every week. We have often said that every Sunday is a “little Easter.” But I did know one theology professor in the seminary who said that we had it backwards. He claimed it would be better to say that Easter is “the major Sunday.” Other feasts came about later as a way of delving more deeply into our faith, but everything we believe and do is based on the glory of this Easter.

When I say that this is the basis of our whole faith, I do not just mean that it tops the list of theological concepts for us to learn about or of things we memorize in our religion classes. The Resurrection is at the heart of the way we live. We are risen to new life with Christ through our baptism. As a result, Baptism becomes the other main theme of Easter, not as an alternate to the celebration of the Resurrection but as a way in which we take part in the Paschal Mystery. That is why this is the time when we celebrate the baptism of adults who have been preparing to enter the Church. This year we are blessed to have two new Catholics joining us through baptism after taking part in the RCIA. Please continue to pray for Emma Fleiner and for Jamie Aurigemma as they take their place within our community. This weekend, at the Easter Vigil, they join us through Baptism and they are sealed with the Holy Spirit in the Sacrament of Confirmation. To complete their initiation, they receive the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist for the first time at that Mass. After months of preparation, they are truly members of the Body of Christ, the Church. Please also pray for another member of the RCIA who continues to prepare but who was not able to enter the Church at this time.

For me, the joy of working with the RCIA is one of the great blessings of this time of the year. The newly baptized adults show such a joy at taking part in the life of the Church that it reminds me of what this season is all about. Easter is not just something that happened almost 2,000 years ago, and baptism is not just something that happened (for me) in 1960. To welcome the newest members of our Church reminds me how important this Easter is. Christ is risen, and everything else we do is based on that faith. Let us rejoice in the Risen Lord. Alleluia!

Father H