Dear Parishioners,
               
A Happy and Joy filled Easter to you all and a special welcome to those visiting us for the celebration: families reunited, students home from school, neighbors dropping in – welcome all.  As James Joyce famously described the Catholic Church “here comes everybody!”   
           
While we celebrate Easter as a family and faith community, it’s amazing how many different understandings and beliefs there are about Easter and Resurrection.  I think many of us really differ on what Easter meant for Jesus, what it means for our loved ones and what it means for ourselves.

Some people have the limited and mistaken notion that Easter faith means to remember that Jesus once left behind an empty tomb and walked around as a resuscitated cadaver rather than remaining a lifeless corpse.  Rather, Easter faith means something more radical for Jesus, for our loved ones and for ourselves.
           
For Jesus, the Scripture makes it clear it was no way near being a case of successful CPR.  This was an entirely different experience of life but to his closest acquaintances both awesome and frightening, reassuring and real.  Everything was changed and our best description is of a risen, living Christ of the Universe, not just a surprisingly healthy Jesus of Nazareth.
           
For our loved ones, we believe that nothing in the universe is ever lost and somehow it is all about relationships.  At the heart or end of our life is consciousness and relationships – we believe that in the life giving Spirit of Christ Jesus, both remain; nothing is lost; our loved ones live on.
           
Most importantly, our Easter faith, “resurrection” or “eternal life” do not just refer to something way at the end of life or at the end of the line.  It is also the texture and the quality of how we live right now.  “Resurrection” points to the real possibility and power of a life of hope rather than despair, a life of loving compassion and service rather than resentment and indifference.  That is the kind of life our parish community seeks to live in good years and in bad.  In this past year alone we have retired one Pope, received a new one and certainly for a while were Popeless but not hopeless. This Easter we remember, we celebrate and we believe what Christ Jesus announced long ago and makes possible today, “I have come that you might have life and have it to the full.” 

As a parish community our simple, straight forward mission statement and identity is “To Hear the Gospel and Make a Difference”.  Our parish community is remarkable and generous in working at that and I’m sure that as a “resurrection people” we will continue to do so despite the major changes in personnel that we are about to face:               

• The first and foremost major change in the life of our parish will be the retirement of our fantastic secretary, Marilyn Joost.  After 30 years of competent, delightful and generous service, she will be retiring at the end of September.
• As of June of this year our wonderful school principal, Kathy Gannon Briggs, is also retiring after six years of dedicated service.  To agree to continue at this time would mean a minimal of a two year commitment, and as a very busy grandmother, she has chosen not to continue.  A Principal Search Committee is already hard at work taking a close look at interviewing with at least seven well qualified applicants we hope to have the announcement of a new Principal by May 1st.
• After 26 years, since my arrival in March of 1988, I have decided it is also time for me to retire as pastor as of September 15th.  I hope to have a full introduction and biography of my successor in next week’s bulletin.  I am confident that he will continue to lead us well as a parish community that “hears the Gospel and makes a difference”.

Your Pastor,
Brian T. Joyce