Fr. John Peeters, CSV, celebrates 60 years as a Viatorian this year, and he continues to uplift all those he serves. On Easter, he offered this reflection to his parishioners at St. Patrick’s Church in Kankakee, and it
Fr. John Peeters, CSV
challenges them to find the signs of spring renewal — even during a pandemic.
“The promise of spring that oftentimes is all around us as we approach Easter, especially when it falls at mid-April, seemingly remains a hope for the coming weeks, but not today.
The challenge is to find those signs of spring renewal that are all around us, though sometimes obscured. To that end, I surveyed the rectory garden from my second-floor office window and, sure enough, the new life of spring was there just waiting to be discovered. Daffodils were rising from the cold ground. Crocuses were reaching up to soak in the warming sun.
New green growth could be witnessed throughout our rectory garden.
It was in another garden, many centuries ago, that some women discovered new life in the midst of tombs. The signs were there to be discovered – empty burial cloths in a vacant tomb. All that was promised by Jesus was indeed coming true. Jesus had experienced resurrection; Jesus had attained new life.
Easter, my dear friends, even in this Year of the Coronavirus, calls us to celebrate the fact that the light of Christ has come into the darkness of our world, providing us with hope for a future greater than we dare believe. Easter challenges us to seek a kind of living that goes beyond the expectations of this earth. All of our hopes for new life come from Christ’s resurrection, which announces that love is present in our world and is more powerful than any evil.
The good news is that, in all of the dark and despairing moments of sickness, suffering, and death, the possibility of resurrection exists because no defeat is final and no life is written off as hopeless. It is Christ who gives us that victory!”