We’re still in the middle of Lent, but Easter is on this calendar page, so it’ll be here before we know it.  At this point in Lent you may find it necessary to review your resolutions and renew your resolve to persist.  Follow the example of your Savior; as He persists in His work in your life, continue your part of the deal by becoming more like Him!

Continue your family Mercy Card Challenge and whatever you’re doing as individuals, and by all means make Confession during Holy Week a high priority.  More than that though, look to the last Sunday of the month for the goal of all these good works.

Therefore Easter is not simply one feast among others, but the “Feast of feasts,” the “Solemnity of solemnities,” just as the Eucharist is the “Sacrament of sacraments” (the Great Sacrament). St. Athanasius calls Easter “the Great Sunday” and the Eastern Churches call Holy Week “the Great Week.” The mystery of the Resurrection, in which Christ crushed death, permeates with its powerful energy our old time, until all is subjected to him.  (CCC 1169)

Pope Saint John Paul II once said, “We are an Easter people and hallelujah is our song!”  As we approach the end of Lent, let’s make plans to practice that song by celebrating all 50 days of Easter.  The joy of our redemption is too huge to contain in one day!  Share God’s mercy with others by being beacons of hope and joy in a world that needs to hear the message! Add this prayer by Blessed John Henry Newman to your daily prayer routine this Easter season and look for opportunities to share the sheer joy of Christianity with others! Click here for a printable version:  Radiating Christ prayer.

Radiating Christ
by Blessed John Henry Newman

Dear Jesus, help me to spread Your Fragrance everywhere I go.
Flood My soul with Your spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly,
That my life may only be a radiance of Yours.

Shine through me, and be so in me
That every soul I come in contact with
May I feel Your presence in my soul
Let them look up to see no longer me, but only Jesus!

Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as You shine,
So to shine as to be the light to others;
The light, O Jesus, will be all from You;
None of it will be mine;
It will be you, shining on others through me.

Let me thus praise You the way You love best, by shining on those around me.
Let me preach You without preaching, not by words but by my example,
By the catching force of the sympathetic influence of what I do,
The evident fullness of the love my heart bears to You.