loader image

Easter 2023

April 1, 2023

Once again, Lent brings us to the gates of Jerusalem. We are invited to accompany Jesus in his passion so that “following him in sorrow, we may also follow him in glory”.

We will accompany each day with a picture and a few words. What matters is to be there and let ourselves be touched, personally, by the mystery we celebrate.

Lenten retreat: Listen to the song of your life.

Palm Sunday:

We begin the great week of our Christian experience. We celebrate two feasts on the same day: the memory of Mother Candida’s inspiration before the altar of the Rosarillo and Palm Sunday.

In both, Jesus is at the center, as we want him to be in our lives so that we can be good news for others. Jesus, the man who spent his life doing good to the last consequences, invites us to accompany him in this week of passion-death-resurrection, with the certainty that, dying with him, we will also rise with him (CFI 136). (Circular 29 Graciela F. – Superior General)

“Christ, in spite of His divine condition, did not flaunt His category of God; on the contrary, He stripped Himself of His rank and took the condition of a slave, passing for one of many. And so, acting like a common man, he lowered himself to the point of submitting even to death, and death on a cross.

Flp. 2, 6-9

Maundy Thursday:

We participate in the Lord’s Supper. We contemplate their gestures and listen to their words.

I imagine myself gathered as a family, in a community, even with the people with whom I share work and mission. And I see how Jesus kneels down in front of each one and washes their feet. I let this image soak into my heart that it becomes an invitation and I talk about it with Jesus.

Maybe he’ll just tell me that… I have to let myself be washed first.

The image has an empty ALT attribute; its file name is jesus-gb2920160c_1280-1024x578.jpg

“If I don’t wash you, you have nothing to do with me.”

John 13:8

Good Friday:

It is the day of God’s apparent ineffectiveness. Why follow you? Why listen to you? Why walk paths that seem to lead me to waste in life?

And God is silent. And God hides. And it leaves us alone. And he makes us carry our own crosses, those we have embraced in his name.

How far am I capable of giving my life?

For myself, even a little. Contemplating the passion of Jesus to the point of death brings light and meaning to those “martyrdoms” that do not kill but hurt. And, little by little, my generosity and my trust in the fact that, although I do not see it, God is there.

“… and Jesus went out, bearing the cross himself, to a place called “of the Skull”.”

John 19:17

Holy Saturday:

When it has already happened. When it’s all over. When we fall into the sadness and anguish of absence. When we cling to what was and mourn for what could have been.

I review today my “holy Saturdays”. Situations, projects, relationships… Those in which I can do no more. Those in which it seems that we have reached the end of the road.

I recognize myself in each one. I am grateful for what was and I ask for light to discover, when it comes, the Light of the Risen One, the new Life that comes to me in Christ, his message.

He came back to life!

It happens to me too. I know the Scriptures but I don’t connect them with life, I don’t understand them.

Am I Mary Magdalene, Peter, or John? In which disciple do you recognize yourself today? Maybe you are one of those who have stayed at home waiting for news?

The Risen Jesus will be looking for each one of us. Wherever we are. As we are. As many times as necessary. Let us pray for one another so that, in this Easter season, we may recognize the consolations of the Risen Lord and be filled with the joy of the Gospel that no one can take away from us.

As we have followed him in his Passion, may we recognize him in his Glory and, in his name, may we be people who generate life in abundance.

“Until then they had not understood the Scripture, that he was to rise from the dead.”

John 20:9

Easter Retreat: Sent to be a song of Life.

Relacionados