THE MESSAGE OF HOLY WEEK AND EASTER: I heard a man disparaging Christian faith on the radio recently by

saying that he doesn’t begrudge us our imaginary friend. Well, the great news of Easter is that Jesus is

anything but imaginary. Jesus is alive, Jesus is risen, and Jesus is Lord. I understand that, when we look at the

state of the world at the moment, people can think that we Christians are living in cloud cuckoo land to be still

proclaiming the virtue of hope. St. Peter said to always be ready to give an account to this world of the hope

that is in you. Our hope is no mere coping-mechanism, no mere attitude of thinking positively, no mere

philosophy of life. No, our hope is personal, our hope is a person, a person called Jesus. And the bedrock of

our faith is what we have just celebrated this week: the resurrection. The resurrection is where Jesus went

into the ring with death. The resurrection is where Jesus gave death a taste of its own medicine. The

resurrection is where Jesus killed death, where Jesus said to death: “from now on, your power to hurt my

people is only temporary.” And so, as happened on the cross, sin and evil and the worst we are capable of

inflicting on each other were beaten, neutralized, absorbed, cancelled-out, by the utter agenda-free goodness

and innocence, the utter self-emptying, of Jesus on the cross. The wonderful writer, Victor Frankl, a survivor

of a Nazi concentration-camp, wrote in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, that we can survive anything if we

believe that ultimately it has a meaning and purpose. We are one with Jesus through baptism, grafted on to

Him. And Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection gives ultimate meaning to our personal passions, deaths, and

resurrections, reassuring us that, if we have faith, hope and trust, all will ultimately make sense, all our

personal and communal Good Fridays will turn to Easter Sundays. Lovely, we may say, but I don’t see it

happening any time soon in our world! The essential ingredient for it to happen is conversion of heart, humbly

admitting that we need God’s grace and repenting of our sins, choosing from now on to put our hand in His

hand and walk by His laws and ways. Human pride must die for amazing grace and divine mercy to flow. Dear

friends, are we any different as a result of Lent and Easter? Have we died to ourselves even a little, emptied

ourselves even a little? Welcome, risen Jesus into our lives. Melt us, mold us, fill us, use us for the healing of

this world. Come, Holy Spirit. Our lady Queen of peace, pray for us. Wishing you all a blessed Easter season.

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THANK YOU to Jimmy Tierney and to Paddy-Joe and Mary Mooney for preparing the blessed palm branches

last weekend. Thank you to all involved in our Holy Week liturgies last week.

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THANK YOU FOR LAST WEEK’S COLLECTION: euro 1240.

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MARY’S MEALS: fundraising coffee morning after 11.30am Mass on April 14. All home baking welcome!

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DIVINE MERCY SUNDAY MASS: next Sunday, April 7 th please God at 2pm in Corpus Christi church,

Lisdoonvarna. This will be a joint gathering with Fr. Martin Shanahan and his community from Inagh church.

Fr. Martin is a most interesting man. After his beloved wife Mary died, he answered the call to priesthood and

is such a blessing to us all. Fr. Martin will be the preacher at Holy Mass and will share his story.

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