#alive

I would like to thank everyone who has kept up with this blog and even read my last post about the Resurrection. Y'all do have to know that I have begun the final period of my last semester of theology and so there are tons of material to study. In fact, I did not find the time to write on the days I previously indicated. I also thank all of you especially for your prayers for me and I am glad to let y'all know that I am doing well with my studies. The studying has been a blessing these days because I am mainly reading documents that are meditations on the relationship between God and the human person. Reading about this wonderful topic, particularly in the Bible, I can see a growth in my relationship with the Lord and a deeper appreciation of God's Grace.

The Word of God continues to guide, in the meantime, the Church in Rome. The faithful have been very attentive to the liturgical readings that present the apparitions to the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ after his Resurrection. We are amazed by the generosity of the Son of God who came in different occasions to meet his disciples in order to transform them into the first witnesses in the Church, an apostolic witness that arrive here to Rome with St. Peter and St. Paul. Surprisingly, none of the Lord's followers recognized the Risen Lord at first and even tried to do tasks apart from him. He came nonetheless to bring them back into the way of salvation. This time of Easter is an invitation for us to recognize the Risen Christ in all the moments of our daily life. He is still with us desiring to help us in our duties and to redeem the world with us. To him, as it should be with us, what's most important is our relationship to him as members of his Church. May God bless everyone always!

#herosefromdeath

Christ rose from death to give every person the opportunity to rise from death. Through his resurrection he has filled our spirits with everlasting life so that after our bodily death we may continue to live. We find ourselves in the middle of the week of Christ's Easter as a Church. In today's papal audience, Francis the bishop of Rome said, "The resurrection was not born in the Church but the Church was born in the resurrection". We all have life because Christ has risen from the death. In our present moment, many realities continue to witness to Christ's Resurrection.

This most special week, God in his mercy has allowed me to see many moments that witness to the Lord's victory over death. Christ is risen in the tens of thousands of teenagers who came with joy to meet the pope and to be reaffirmed in the faith. Christ is risen in my thirteen Jesuit classmates who have accepted with joy the ordination to the diaconate yesterday. Christ is risen in the forty fathers from my congregation's Italian province who are meeting to discuss ways to renew their communities and choose a new superior. Christ is risen in the thousands of families that are coming to Rome these days to visit this city and enjoy its great weather, in the children playing in the parks, in the older people taking walks, in that desire that burns in my heart to shine the light of Hope and to share what I've received.

The Risen Christ is suddenly recognizable. As he presents himself to me in calling my name, in proclaiming God's message, in the breaking of the bread, he invites me to join him in this Easter announcement. God is calling me right now to witness to everyone around me in every word I say, in every action I take, in every decision I make that Jesus Christ rose from death and lives. My life is called to proclaim that "The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!".

And so let us pray Christ the Pilgrim who walks next to us every day at work, at school, at home, in our neighborhood: "Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is nearly over". Stay with us always.