A warm embrace has always been a universal gesture of love and acceptance; of unity and solidarity. In fact, visitors and strangers would feel welcomed and assured being embraced by their host upon arrival. And basic and common as it may seem to be, this simple action is powerful enough to bridge and seal countless broken relationships in history. It is in this context that the Father chose to manifest how wide, how deep and how strong is his love for men and women is. Through Jesus Christ, he made his great and warm embrace of humanity; restoring us to his friendship.
Only this great, immense and unconditional love coming from God can make loving one’s enemy possible. We are at enmity with God but he gave us his only begotten Son. And as he “pitched his tent and made his dwelling among us”, he embraced the exigencies of human existence in toto. He experienced the pain of hunger, the difficulty of work, the hurt of rejection, the sadness of losing a loved-one, the agony of experiencing temptation, the scourge of betrayal and abandonment by close-friends, the torment of being wrongly-accused, and the humiliation of dying a criminal’s death. Clothed only with wounds, he freely embraced the symbol of our defeat--the cross--so that, with this great and warm embrace of humanity, we may be reconciled with the Father. Indeed, God’s love defeated sin and death! This is the victory of Easter! And truly, this is the day the Lord has made. We really have reasons to be glad and rejoice!
As we are saved and restored in love, let us not forget that we, as Rogationists, were also called in love, a very special kind of love, a predilection, according to the words of our dear Father Founder. I wish and I pray that, this Easter Season, all of us may experience once again the warmth of Christ’s embrace--the very same embrace that impelled us to commit ourselves to him and to the Church during our first profession--so that we may renew today, with more dynamism and courage, the demands of our baptismal and religious consecration. May the warmth of this same embrace of Christ impel us also to embrace our confreres in fraternal communion as well as our brothers and sisters, especially those who are most in need, and be a brother’s keeper to them all; so that, with the simplicity of our life, we may proclaim the Easter’s message of hope to the whole world.
May we find our strength, solace and consolation in the tender and loving embrace of our Blessed Virgin Mary, our Mother. Happy Easter to all!!!
