Easter Message from the Archbishop - Life is full of rendezvous: rendezvous with love, with joy, rendezvous with suffering and pain...

Dear Brothers and Sisters, 

Life is full of rendezvous: rendezvous with love, with joy, rendezvous with suffering and pain. There is also death, which looms on the horizon, appearing to us as the end of life. Every year we are graced with the celebration of Easter, which reminds us that death itself is not the final word on life and love, but rather a passage into eternal life.

Jesus Christ never stops knocking on the door of our hearts. He lives, and He comes to us, calling us to himself, so that we may know his Love, which is more powerful than death. Jesus Christ died on the cross, in prayer and with love. Jesus Christ rose from the dead and opened for us the way to eternal life, thus revealing the power of Divine Love.  

In the same way that death could not keep Jesus Christ from being raised to life, nothing that befalls us in life, neither pain, sickness nor suffering, can prevent Him from transforming our death into a passage to eternal life.

Trust in Him. Commend your life to Him, surrender your illness and the hour of your death to Him. Your final destination is not death, but eternal life.  

May we learn to surrender to God, with our eyes fixed on the Lord Jesus Christ crucified. He is risen.  

I bless you with my whole heart:  

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.   

Happy Easter,   

+ Christian Lépine 
Archbishop of Montreal