The Easter we celebrate with joy today is not simply a passive commemoration of the past, but an active participation in the Mystery that presents itself in the person of Jesus.

These past few days have reminded us that true disciples of Jesus are willing to lay down their lives that others may come to believe! This is at the heart of who we are as a parish. We are believers, willing to sacrifice ourselves to make the world more human, more Christ-like.

As believers, we are not spectators to what we believe. Charity is Love in action. We are believers who not only teach a new path to holiness, we put it into practice, perhaps not perfectly but certainly purposefully.

As the Catholic Community in King of Prussia we gladly reach out even to strangers with testimony of who we have encountered here and what we do because of what we have seen. We witness by our suffering, no matter how small or how great, the hope of a new life in Christ through our charity for the poor, through our acceptance of the outcast, and through our helping those who find themselves lost and confused.

Easter is a personal encounter with the Risen Lord who has change us for the better and we want to share this encounter with all those who seek God, in no matter what state in life or in what situation they find themselves.

We worship God first above all things and then we go out and make a difference in Upper Merion and in the world by preaching the Gospel to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and by setting free those who are oppressed” (Luke 4:18).

Saint Augustine wrote once, “What I needed most was to love and to be loved, eager to be caught.”

This Easter, my friends, feel the need to be loved and then love freely. Become more eager to be caught by the One Who seeks you with all His Heart. He is risen and calls you to go out to roadsides and byways, gathering those who are poor or homeless, the sick and the lame, bringing them here so they too may believe that God loves them.

“For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us celebrate the feast, not with the old yeast (of our imperfections), the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” (1 Corinthians 5:8)

Jesus is not dead. Jesus is alive. Alleluia!