Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
We all have felt the powerful impact of the Celebration of the Lord’s Passion on Good Friday and of the Stations of the Cross devotion. These celebrations impact us powerfully because we know suffering, we acknowledge our sins, and we recognize that our sins are the cause of Jesus’ suffering and death.
The Resurrection of Jesus on the other hand does not, for most of us, for some reason capture our attention as much as his Passion and Death. Maybe it is because we have no human experience of resurrection; it is in fact referred to as a mystery of faith.
It would nevertheless be incomplete, even wrong for us to stop at the Passion of our Lord, to fix our gaze only there. Resurrection with Jesus is the promise of faith. “He is risen” is the message Jesus’ followers are sent to proclaim. St. Paul wrote that “if Christ has not been raised, then empty is our preaching; empty, too, your faith” (1 Cor 15:14).
Both the Passion of Jesus and his Resurrection have significance for our practice of Catholic Faith, especially for sharing our faith with others.
Jesus charged all his followers to share our Catholic Faith with others. If we cannot personally do missionary work, we can do it vicariously by providing material support to those who do: “We ought to support such persons, so that we may be coworkers in the truth” (3 John, verse 8). The health of our faith is to a great extent measured by how well we share it with others, teaching them to know Jesus so they can make an informed choice to love him and to serve their neighbors.
In support of the Church’s mission to share our faith, you are invited on Easter Sunday to make an extraordinary gift, over and above your regular parish tithe. The money received from the special Easter envelopes will be sent to our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI for the Peter’s Pence fund and to the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, which provides direct assistance to those working in the mission fields.
With kind regards and prayerful best wishes for a blessed Easter, I am
Sincerely yours in Christ,
+Michael O. Jackels
Bishop of Wichita