we are Easter people

“We are Easter people and alleluia is our song” said St. Augustine. This is certainly true, but why are we Easter people?

Simply, we are Easter people because Easter is vital to our humanity. Without Easter, there would be no promise of salvation and no reason for suffering. We’d be here on Earth with no hope at all. It is today that we remember the glorious strength of Christ.

In his Easter message, Pope Benedict XVI said, “Easter is the true salvation of humanity! If Christ—the Lamb of God—had not poured out his blood for us, we would be without hope, our destiny and the destiny of the whole world would inevitably be death.” Christ conquered death. And through this, rescues us from our own mortality. Only when he died and rose again was his purpose fulfilled. Only through death can he give life.

I was blessed enough to attend the Easter Vigil Mass at St. Peter’s last night. In his homily, the Pope spoke of salvation and baptism. He said, “this cure for death, this true medicine of immortality, does exist. It has been found. It is within our reach. In baptism, this medicine is given to us. A new life begins in us, a life that matures in faith and is not extinguished by the death of the old life, but is only then fully revealed.” He continued later by saying, “it is God who clothes us in the garment of light, the garment of life. Paul calls these new ‘garments’ ‘fruits of the spirit,’ and he describes them as follows: ‘love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.’ ”

St. Peter's is ready for the Easter Season. This photo is of the square

just after midnight on Easter morning when the Vigil Mass ended.

We all spend a lot of time searching for these fruits, love most especially. But, it is hard to perfect ourselves and truly answer the call to holiness we have each received. However, as Benedict said, this process has already begun through our baptism, we must now accept the graces, deny ourselves in light of God’s will and seek goodness: a daily struggle, of course. But, Benedict explained “this changing of garments is something that continues for the whole of life. What happens in baptism is the beginning of a process that embraces the whole of our life—it makes us fit for eternity, in such a way that, robed in the garment of light of Jesus Christ, we can appear before the face of God and live with him for ever.”

May you remember your baptism and all it means for new life in Christ this Easter season. We are all new in Christ’s victory. Sing Alleluia, for it is sincerely our song. We are Easter people. Buona Pasqua!

Happy Easter; He is Risen. Alleluia!

duty of a moment

I recently read a post on my friend Beth’s blog about how difficult it is to know how much we should invest in others, especially others that may only be in our lives for “a day, an afternoon, an hour.”

Just hours before reading the post, I had found myself in the elevator, heading up to my apartment. The two people sharing the elevator with me were both clearly American students. There was that awkward moment in the beginning of the ride where I thought about saying something, asking a question, striking up conversation, but then thought too hard; the moment of opportunity passed. So, the three of us stood patiently in silence. It was just a short ride up five floors, not worth chatting anyway. A few minutes later I was at my door, unlocking my apartment and setting down my schoolbag.

However, Beth’s point was that people are inherently worth investing time in, even those we do not know. She said, “you invest in them, knowing that you might never see them again.”

Beth’s writing immediately clicked with me. Living can’t be about giving when we know there will be a long term relationship or conversing when we are guaranteed another exchange, or avoiding awkward moments by staying quiet in elevators. Our humanity has got to run deeper in our veins than this comfort-seeking attitude.

It is okay to meet somebody and then “move on to new adventures,” as Beth put it, since we are, in the process, “leaving His fingerprints… even if we forget each other.”

Maybe not every elevator ever time, but sometimes it is our duty of the moment to say something, even something seemingly unimportant, to the person standing next to us.

Don’t let the sun set before you’ve given

somebody else a reason to hope (1 Peter 3:15).

but, that isn't all

"Life is just a plain bloody mess, that's all. And, people are fools." -– Hally from Master Herold…and the Boys, a play by Athol Fugard.

As much as this quote appeals to the cynic within me (while giving me a little chuckle), our generation needs to move past this shortsighted worldview, especially if we ever want to overcome the culture of death.

Life can be messy, but that isn’t all life is. People are often foolish, but that isn’t all we are. It’s a Wonderful Life. Really, it is. “Don't you see what a mistake it would be to throw it away?”

Looking into the Potomac River valley from the outdoor chapel at Mar-Lu-Ridge, where even amidst the madness of camp, life seems particularly beautiful.

"affliction produces endurance, and endurance, proven character, and proven character, hope, and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts." --Romans 5:3-5

there is hope

the tipping point

A new semester is well underway for me here in Williamsburg. If you ever visit, you will get a great feeling of respect across campus for the historic town in which we are blessed to learn. The mere fact that freshmen and seniors alike covet classes in the Wren Chapel proves how we value this great tradition.

But, sadly, in this same holy place where Thomas Jefferson so famously studied, my peers feed media encouraged sex addictions, fuel their bodies with alcohol (irresponsibly) and sell their minds out to TV show after TV show. The overwhelming attitude held at W&M is that intelligence is revered when paired with a certain acceptance of moral relativity and immoral carelessness.

And therefore, I am glad that the closing of last semester is far in the past and the ending of this semester is a good look into the future. I will emotionally prepare myself this time around.

The last day of the semester, “blowout,” is an excuse to do many obnoxious things, the first of which is coming to class drunk. Imagine a 300-person room at maximum capacity in which the majority of people are drunk. This is what my microecon class looked like at 10 a.m. that Friday.

I sat down to listen to the last 50-minute lecture before our final, but I was incapable of focusing on the professor because of a boy two rows in front of me: a drunk 18-year-old college freshman staring at internet porn videos. Looking. Smiling. Pointing. Laughing.

Haha. LOL. Isn’t that funny?

Yeah, so funny I was tearing up. I have never felt such an urge to act out violently against another human than in that classroom. Ever. But, I didn’t do anything. And neither did anyone else. The entire class chose to ignore and laugh. Because, after all, this is the way college is.

I am far from believing that life should be taken seriously all day everyday, but I do believe there are serious choices we make in our lives. There are choices that can bring us to a better state of enlightenment and self-control. And, there are choices that, well, cause us to be stumbling drunk, looking at pornography in a public classroom in front of 300 peers.

I refuse to believe that we will be able to continue to ignore, laugh and turn our heads from such obvious violations of human morals. We will reach a tipping point.