We are still in the highs of Easter as we enter the third week of Easter. It is the Resurrection: Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia! One of the best messages I heard on Easter is Pope Francis’ beautiful Easter vigil homily in which he invited us Catholics to: “Return to Galilee.” On the Resurrection morning, the first witnesses heard this from the angel and then from the risen Christ. Galilee is the place where they were first called, where everything began! To return there, to return to the place where they were originally called. The Holy Father explains the meaning of the invitational challenge to return to Galilee. First it means a re-reading of the central events of the life of Jesus in the light of this new beginning, the supreme act of love.
It is also an invitation for each of us to remember and celebrate our baptism. As Pope Francis says: “For each of us, too, there is a “Galilee” at the origin of our journey with Jesus. ‘To go to Galilee’ means something beautiful, it means rediscovering our baptism as a living fountainhead, drawing new energy from the sources of our faith and our Christian experience.”
During this Easter, let us seek to rediscover the meaning of our Baptism. We must ask ourselves the question: “Where is our Galilee?” For those of us who were baptized as infants, Easter presents us with the unique opportunity to “claim” our baptism. We are encouraged to find out when we were baptized and to “re-live” that moment every Easter. The blessing with holy water and the paschal candle that burns throughout Easter are eloquent reminders of our Baptism. Embark on the spiritual journey to the place where we first encountered Christ.
Perhaps, throughout this month let us take the time to meditate on what Easter means to us as a community and as individuals. What does the Resurrection mean to me? What does it mean to say we are an Easter people? It is important to avoid the danger of complacency – whereby Easter becomes a mere cyclical return of the seasons over which we have no control. As an Easter people we are invited to show the power of life over death, exude joy and above all, live in and bring hope. Easter reminds us of those very famous words, the sadness of Good Friday makes way to the joy of Easter. Such is the rhythm of Christian life. The cross is not the last word.
Easter is already warming up to be very exciting with the wonderful gift of two new saints. They are not just the ordinary regulars but two great contemporary giants of our faith: St John XXIII, who convened the famous Second Vatican Council that revolutionized the Church and St John Paul II. For young adults like some of us, the memories of St. John Paul II are still very fresh in our minds and hearts. These are our contemporaries who walked this “vale of tears” and appreciate better our daily struggles. For over two and half decades, the universal Church prayed daily at every mass for our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II and during prayers of the faithful. We prayed for the Pope and today we are invited to pray with and through the Pope now a saint.
May we be inspired by these words of the Preface the priest uses during mass for saints – holy men and women: “You renew the Church in every age by raising up men and women outstanding in holiness, living witnesses of your unchanging love. They inspire us by their heroic lives and help us by their constant prayers to be the living sign of your saving power.” There could be no better way of living the joy of this Easter other than enjoying it with these two new saints. In order to be inspired by their heroic lives we must seek to get to know them better. How about buying a biography on each of the recently canonized Popes and reading it. One of the greatest tragedies of Catholicism is the abundance of literature we posses and yet many remain ignorant of the faith. During this month, let us resolve to learn something from their lives. Above all, let us seek their intercession for our daily needs. Saints Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II, pray for us.
A critical ingredient in St. Pope John Paul II’s pontificate undoubtedly is his dedication to the Blessed Virgin Mary. May is celebrated throughout the Catholic world as a Marian month. This is in honor of the Blessed Mother’s apparition at Fatima, May 13, 1917. During this month, we shall also celebrate Mother’s day on May 11th. We are invited to treasure not just the genius of the woman but also the amazing gift of motherhood. Hence, we must reflect on what it means to be not just a woman but above all what it means to be a mother? In fact, the challenge is to come to terms with not only what it means to be a Catholic woman and one who belongs to an apostolate but also a Catholic mother? How Catholic are we?
In a very special way, this month must be dedicated to the Catholic women apostolate of our Cameroon Catholic community in DC metro area who are in crises. The bickering, the rancor, bitterness and division fueled by a vaulted ambition to be in control no matter the cost by a coterie of know-it-all, high-class and well connected women expressed in pidgin as “over-sabis” are clearly not Marian virtues. It may sound outrageous but truth be told, it is not enough to pray the rosary! If these are the fruits of their bimonthly meetings praying the rosary, then we must reexamine our prayers.
Do we just recite the rosary or do we pray the rosary? May we grow in our devotion to Mary especially throughout the course of this month of May. During this month, let us seek to mirror the virtues of Mary, with and through whom we pray. Like St Pope John Paul II taught us in that beautiful encyclical on the rosary:With the Rosary, the Christian people sits at the school of Mary and is led to contemplate the beauty on the face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love. This month let us return to Mary’s school and sit at her feet to contemplate with her the face of the Risen Christ.
During this month when we get to celebrate mother’s day, it is also incumbent upon each of us to celebrate the motherhood of the Church. It is time for us to reexamine what does it mean to belong to the Catholic Church? Is the Church just a structure where we go to worship? Is it the dominant all male hierarchy which hardly understands women and above all contemporary issues? If Baptism makes us members of the Church – God’s family and the Church is mother, let us draw out the meaning of this for our spiritual edification. What is my relation to holy mother, the Church?
By some strange twist and divine providence, the Church launched the month of the rosary by inviting us to celebrate May 1st as feast of St Joseph, the worker. The Church celebrates the value of human labor. Work is good, it is noble and it is divine. In one of his homilies on one of these celebrations of May 1st, St Pope John Paul II drew out this significance of work when he said:
If the Son of God was willing to learn a human work from a man, this indicates that there is in work a specific moral value with a precise meaning for man and for his self-fulfillment. In the Encyclical Laborem Exercens, I mentioned precisely that “through work man not only transforms nature, adapting it to his own needs, but he also achieves fulfillment as a human being and indeed, in a sense, becomes more a human being” (n. 9) How can we not recognize then the great dignity of work, whatever kind it may be in its concrete expression? How can we not see the fundamental role that it fulfills in the life of the individual, of the family, of society?
This month many people are graduating from school and will be in the job market. May they ask the powerful intercession of St Joseph, the worker to afford them good jobs. May all those searching for jobs implore the intercession of St Joseph. And for all those who work, there is an invitation to rediscover the true meaning of work. There is the temptation to view work only in its economic value and forget its intrinsic spiritual value. To work is to pray and we are saved because we work or better still we are saved in and through our work.
In sum, the five things Catholics can do during May include the following:
– Celebrate Easter by recalling and reliving our Baptism
– Pray the Rosary
– Avail of the intercession of Sts. Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II
– Celebrate our mothers and the motherhood of the Church
– Celebrate St Joseph the worker and express the value of work.