It’s Easter Sunday

I’ve been waiting for this, the celebration of Easter Sunday. I look back at the days beginning Lent and the silent but meaningful celebration of Holy Week and Easter Triduum , and I’m  once gain grateful for lessons learned, sacrifices achieved, prayers answered and lots of blessings to speak of.  When I think of Easter, it always reminds me of a new beginning, a new hope, a new life.  We should not only look at Easter as Christ being risen but as a symbol of His infinite love for us. Hope is something we all need in our lives and Easter brings that hope in all of us. Every year we are given the chance to renew our baptismal promises  during Easter Sunday. And isn’t it a great celebration knowing that what your godparents did  for you when you were just an infant are the same promises you undertake to do for the rest of your life?  Isn’t it amazing that grace flows when we affirm it? For us Catholics, Baptism is not just a mere formality but it brings us to a new life in Christ, the very mark of being a Christian. I took  a few shots of the Easter Sunday celebration in our Parish and would like to share them with you. My daughter and I did some cooking too to celebrate Easter lunch and dinner. I prepared  Pork Adobo and Ginatang langka while she cooked Shrimp Pasta for dinner.  Hubby was not around so it was only the three of us who shared lunch and dinner. There is more than enough to last us until tomorrow.  We’ve  abstained from eating meat since the start of Lent  so it is a little exciting to eat pork again.

 The Paschal Candle

 Image of the Risen Christ

 The image of Mama Mary during the Salubong

I love this tradition of Salubong which dramatizes the eventual meeting of  the Risen Christ and that of His Mother, Mama Mary. It is  a pre-dawn procession wherein the men and women start from different areas and meet in front of the church.  The men walk behind  the image of the Resurrected Christ while the Blessed Mother, still covered in a black veil, comes in the front line of the women. A kid do the task of lifting the veil of Mama Mary. Beautiful. The Salubong signals a new beginning for all of us. And what does the Salubong and Easter tell us?  God is truly present in our lives and He is present in every heart that truly shares love with one another. Would love to end this reflection with these lovely lines:

Now let the heavens be joyful,

Let earth her song begin:

the round world keep triumph,

And all that is therein; Invisible and visible,

Their notes let all things blend,

For Christ the Lord is risen

Our joy that hath no end. -Saint John of Damascus-

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From Darkness To Light

Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in spring-time. ~Martin Luther 

How could we even think that Easter meant  bunnies and egg hunts?  It is sad that the season has become a little commercialized when it is the most important event that tells us not only Jesus’s death and resurrection but His immense love for all mankind. What has Easter bunnies  and candies and colored eggs got to do with the celebration of the rare beauty of a new life?  Eggs are widely used to symbolize and represent a new life.  It’s a symbol of rebirth. Some  people use real hard-boiled eggs while others make do with plastic eggs filled with colorful candies inside.

It was a long journey, filled with pain, suffering and death.  We could not even begin to fathom if we are worthy of such sacrifice, we could not even begin to fathom if we deserve to be given this beautiful gift of life despite our sins. Easter should center on remembering what Christ did for us. He died on the cross for our sins and rose from the dead . Sin and death. Darkness  to  light.  A new beginning. What a beautiful message Easter brings!

A HAPPY AND BLESSED EASTER TO ALL!

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