Easter -- the Cry of Victory


Lent is a 40 day/night journey.  The Season of Easter goes 40 days to the Day of Ascension, and then we wait for Pentecost.  We may have thought that Easter has passed, but to think thusly is to miss the message.  So, in that spirit I share these words from Archbishop Oscar Romero, the martyred leader of the church in El  Salvador during the late 1970s (through part of 1980).  I invite you to meditate upon these words that place our lives in the midst of the Resurrection of Jesus.  



Easter is itself now the cry of victory.
No one can quench the life that Christ has resurrected.
Neither death nor all the banners of death and hatred
raised against him and against his church can prevail.
He is the victorious one!
Just as he will thrive in an unending Easter,
so we must accompany him in a Lent and a Holy Week
of cross, sacrifice, and martyrdom.
As he said, blessed are they who are not scandalized
by his cross.
Lent, thus, is a call to celebrate our redemption
in that difficult combination of cross and victory.
Our people are well prepared to do so these days:
all that surrounds us proclaims the cross.
But those who have Christian faith and hope
know that behind this calvary of El Salvador
lies our Easter,
our resurrection.
That is the Christian people’s hope.
MARCH 23, 1980


Excerpted from Oscar Romero, The Violence of Love, (The Plough Publishing, p. 218). -- A free ebook 

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