Do not be afraid. He has risen!

To all the Brothers and Co-workers, Members of the Hospitaller Family of St John of God

As Easter approaches, I am sending my Easter greetings to the entire Family of St John of God and to all the loved ones and guests in the Order's Centres and Facilities, that Our Risen Lord will fill our lives with hope, especially this year.

Resurrection and Hope are two words that have to be understood together, to fully make sense of the life of Jesus Christ and God's plan for the world. Without both, everything would mean nothing; we have believed, hoped or accepted the idea... but without them everything ends in disillusionment. That was first immediate experience of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. But their ultimate experience, like that of the women at sunrise that Sunday morning, and the disciples of Jesus and of so many others, was It is true, He is alive, He has risen! just as the angels had told them at the entrance to the tomb.

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ changed the world and filled it with hope, because it opened the door to the life that God gives us, making the One who died on the cross rise again, forever, so that death, sin and suffering would never again defeat life.

Our Lord wishes us to experience and delight in the joy and happiness of the new life which he gives us while we are still in this world, and therefore invites us to live according to the values of the Gospel: fraternity, freedom, mercy, service and hospitality, especially for the benefit of those in greatest need. By living in this way we shall begin to experience the new life which we have already been given through our Baptism, a life called to fullness, the life enjoyed by the Risen Christ and by those who already live with Him.

However, the history of humanity and the situation in which we are now living, means that we are experiencing human frailty, sometimes due to our own limitations and at other times caused by ambition and grand-standing, the fruit of selfishness and the failure to respect people being subjugated by force or whose rights are being trampled underfoot, and violated. All this is giving rise to great suffering and is inflicting much harm on the men and women of our world, but also on the environment and the Earth which is home to us, but which we constantly maltreat, as well. 

We are still living through these situations that are the source of so much harm in the world. The Covid-19 pandemic, which has brought so much death and suffering, has been raging for more than two years now. Although it appears that things have improved somewhat, thanks to vaccines and other drugs, we still have to exercise caution and follow the recommendations given to us by the health authorities. It is true that throughout this pandemic, while we have experienced suffering and death, we have also witnessed a great outpouring of solidarity and generosity by many people, especially the healthcare workers. Let us never forget that.

More grievous still is the war which erupted on 24 February with Russia's invasion of Ukraine. We are also witnessing the death and destruction it is causing by wantonly following the law of ‘might means right’. The same is happening in other armed conflicts which are still active in different parts of the world, and which the media no longer even mention. What terror, and what mindless pain is being brought about by human selfishness!

These and other states of suffering our world is experiencing are preventing us from experiencing the life which God gives us, largely because we are turning our backs on God, shutting Him out of our lives. What the world prefers is war and conflict rather than love and fraternity.

Beset by all this, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is shouting more stridently than ever about the Hope He brings us: it is telling us that neither pandemics, nor even wars, nor any attempt to drive God out of our world, can ever succeed or be the destiny of humankind. This year in particular the Risen Lord's message of Hope is addressed to the victims of wars, that are always senseless wherever they are waged. Just as Christ died on the cross out of love for all of us, today he continues to die in every victim of war or of aggression or abuse of any kind. Just as Christ is risen, so too will those who have suffered and continue to suffer these unconscionable outrages, which are an affront to human dignity Do not be afraid. He has risen!       

Against this background, we are celebrating the Provincial Chapters of the Order as planned. Being able to meet face-toface again is a wonderful experience of new life, which the Holy Spirit is giving us, after two years of only virtual communications. It is proving to be an experience of resurrection, opening up to the life and future of the Order in every Province where we are celebrating and calling to mind the charismatic power of Hospitality in the Jubilee Year of the 450th anniversary of the Bull Licet ex debito. This charismatic power that St John of God unleashed gives us the ability to revive and renew the life of our Order, taking Hospitality to the world, a genuine alternative to human selfishness and abuse. We are helped and encouraged in all this by the testimony of our Brothers of the Drohobycz Community (Ukraine), which continues to bring hope and life to the suffering and those fleeing the horror of the bombs.   

With the best wishes of the General Government and the entire Hospitaller Family of St John of God of the General Curia for a HAPPY EASTER! 

Brother Jesús Etayo

Superior General