The women ran to tell his disciples!

To all the members of the Hospitaller Family of St John of God

With Lent drawing to its end, and as we prepare to celebrate Easter, I wish to send the whole Family of St John of God and all the people for whom we care in the Centres and Services of the Order my best Easter wishes, praying that Our Risen Lord will fill you all with joy and hope. A Happy Easter to you all!

It was at first light, on the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to visit the tomb where they had laid Jesus. They were despondent, because they had lost the One on whom they had pinned all their hopes, the One they had loved. It was all over. They had gone to mourn him. They were grieving. He had died in the worst possible manner, condemned to death by the political and religious authorities, totally alone and abandoned. They had lost all hope. But it had happened so recently that they still loved him, and were unable to believe or accept it.

And they could never have imagined what awaited them. Their love and faith in Jesus gave them such a powerful experience that it would transform their grief into joy, their anguish into celebration. Firstly, there were the words of the angel: Do not be afraid… Jesus, who was crucified… is not here. And then their meeting with Jesus: Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.

So was true what He had said when He was with them, that He would rise from the dead. Not only what it not the end of everything, it was the beginning of a new age, the age of life, the age of hope for all, particularly for the weakest and the most vulnerable people. He is alive! His resurrection is the door of the salvation of humanity. Neither suffering, nor sin, nor death shall prevail. Life has arrived. This is great news, a great gift which Easter gives us. Let us joyfully revel in it.

The women ran to tell his disciples. This was the reaction of people bursting with joy: to run as quickly as possible to tell the closest friends. And that is what the women did. They had met the Risen Lord, He was alive! It was also a reaction brought about by their faith in, and love for Jesus. From being downcast and grieving, they became the first announcers, the first missionaries and the first witnesses of Christ’s Resurrection.

What a wonderful experience for the women, and then for the disciples! We are all invited to share this experience during Easter and for ever, because Christ has risen for ever. Firstly, the joyful experience of meeting the Risen Lord, with the One who had defeated death. In our personal, social and Church life, and indeed within our own Order, we experience many situations which may create a sense of discouragement, frustration, despair, and dejection. We feel that there is nothing we can do about it, while suffering, sin and death continue to thrive. We can find no reasons for it. But the meeting with the Risen Lord changes everything. Above all, the power of Easter joy triumphs over all, life triumphs, as Jesus had said as he travelled the world announcing the coming of the Kingdom of God. And so there are no more reasons or excuses for gloom and grief, even though pain and death often continue unabated. Do not fear, because the life which the Risen Christ brings us triumphs over all these things.

Like those women, we are also invited to run to tell everyone this good news. There is no time to be lost. Many women and men do not know about it, or they doubt it because they live their lives surrounded by sadness and mourning, with no future prospects, with no hope in sight. At Easter time all  the Members of the Family of St John of God are called to announce the joy of Easter to the sick and the people we care for in our Centres. It forms part of our charism and our mission: to bear witnesses to the salvation and everlasting life which Christ’s Resurrection brings us, revealing to those who are suffering that physical, existential or spiritual sickness is not what awaits us, just as the Cross of Jesus was not the end, for the end is the triumph of life, of light, and of joy. Let us waste no more time and announce it to everyone, and let us be fervent witnesses of the joy which Easter brings, as prophets of compassion and icons of God’s heartfelt mercy, as Pope Francis recently told us in his message to the General Chapter.

Now that the 69^th General Chapter has ended we have embarked on a new Sexennium, implementing the plan of work and the programme of the General Government based on the Lines of Action adopted by the Chapter. All the Provinces will shortly be receiving the document containing the Declarations of the General Chapter and the Programme for the period which is now beginning. With the same joy and enthusiasm as the women who ran to tell the disciples about the Resurrection of Jesus, I urge you all to welcome and to announce the new Lines of Action issued by our General Chapter which will guide the life of the Order over the next six years, enabling us to deal with the challenges currently confronting us, faithful to the charism and mission of our Institute, with the hope and the life that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ brings us. 

The General Government and the whole Hospitaller Family of St John of God send you our best wishes for a VERY HAPPY EASTER!

Brother Jesús Etayo

Superior General