Dear Friends,

Happy Easter to you! May the blessings of the Risen Lord be with you all.

I don’t know about you, but aside from the spiritual joy of the Easter season, I always seem to feel an extra spring in my step as well.

I think part of it is that we get to hear all about the amazing energy and, we are told, the Spirit-filled “boldness”, of the apostles as they set about sharing the Good News of the Risen Lord. Nothing could stop them! They were on fire with this life-changing news and we hear them say in the Scriptures that they were incapable of NOT spreading it.

And then, among the Easter week readings, on the Feast of St Mark, we hear in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus give the apostles the great commission: “Go out to all the world and tell the Good News”.

And that, of course, is what Christians have been doing ever since.

As Divine Word Missionaries in 2017, we are indeed present in “all he world” and we feel a special call to share the Good News with the poor, the marginalised, the forgotten. In the AUS Province our mission priorities include working with migrants and multicultural communities, indigenous Australians, interfaith dialogue, justice, peace and ecology. We also train young missionaries to be sent out into the world with the Good News.

In all of this, it is a real shot in the arm at Easter time to connect ourselves, through liturgy and Word, back into the awesome reality of the Resurrection, and then, throughout the Easter season, to be reminded again of the unstoppable missionary enthusiasm of the first Christian communities.

As St Augustine said (and was later paraphrased by St John Paul II), “We are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song!”. May the joy of the Easter season bring a spring to your step too and impel us all to seek new ways of sharing our joy with those we meet, wherever we are.

Yours in the Word,

Fr  Henry Adler SVD

Provincial