Holy Wednesday, April 17, 2019
Greetings Clergy, Religious, and Lay Faithful of the Diocese of Saskatoon:
I wish you all a blessed Holy Week and Easter Season! We enter into a profoundly meaningful time in the life of our faith, as we recall our Lord Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem in which He personally meets the tragedy and seeming finality of the human propensity towards ‘fatal attractions.’ The Saviour’s response is one of complete self-giving and the literal outpouring of His life. Indeed, the greatest love the world has ever known is that which we witness on that terrible day we know as ‘Good Friday.’
Then, Easter Sunday comes! Jesus, after having faced the totality of human death …rises! Indeed, Our Lord has confronted and taken on absolutely anything that can come between us and the saving love of God, the Creator of the world who did not will that death be the final experience for humanity. As Our Lord states, “I have come that you may have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10)
Let us recall with devotion and gratitude the journey that Jesus takes from Good Friday to Easter Sunday. May His journey inspire and embolden us regarding what is possible in terms of healing and new hope. Our world faces many challenges. We too face obstacles that at times seem insurmountable. Through all of this, Jesus continues to lovingly and faithfully look at us, saying “…for God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26)
As Pope Francis recently stated, “Christians cannot fight the devil by becoming ‘superstars.’” The Lord responds to the evil one by holding fast to His own way, the way of humility and trust in God’s unrelenting faithfulness to us. May this Easter season be a time of hope and renewal for us all. Not because we are heroic with our goals and affirmations, but because we recommit to walking always with the Lord. He has risen from the dead, and has shown us the way from enslavement to freedom; from destructive anger or despair to healing; from death to life.
May the Easter season be a time of healing and renewal for us all.
Sincerely in Christ,
+ Bishop Mark Hagemoen
PDF of Bishop Mark Hagemoen’s letter to the Clergy, Religious and Lay Faithful, Easter 2019: Message
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