A time of light, a time of song, a time of joy

The season of Easter Alleluias has come! This is a time for singing! Let us be glad and rejoice in it! The stone of darkness and humankind's captivity has been rolled back, and we can walk into the light of the Risen Christ.

This Lenten season has been a time to roll back our own personal "stones," whether they be large as boulders or as small as grains of sand. The 40 days of prayer, almsgiving and fasting are an annual "spring cleaning" to erode whatever human frailties keep us from the peace and harmony that is our birthright as children of God.

As we rejoice in Christ's glorious triumph over sin and death, may we be enabled -- by the new life He earned for us -- to focus His light to dispel the shadow side of our lives.

Coming out of the darkness that separates us from the fullness of grace, we can grow more and more into Christ's likeness as we confidently walk the path of discipleship fashioned by His love for each of us.

The Scripture readings during our Lenten journey have taught us many lessons; it is now time to put into our daily living the resolutions we made to strengthen our spiritual lives through our love of God and neighbor.

G.K. Chesterton, the English author, had a wonderful perspective on these primary virtues: "Loving means to love that which is unlovable, or it is no virtue at all; forgiving means to pardon the unpardonable, or it is no virtue at all; faith means believing the unbelievable, or it no virtue at all. And to hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all."

In our world torn by war, natural disasters, broken relationships and life-sapping poverty, it behooves us to roll back these "stones" by using "praise rather than criticism, sympathy rather than condemnation, encouragement rather than its opposite; to build rather than destroy; to think of people at their best rather than at their worst" (from William Barclay's "A Time to Pray").

No antidote to what undermines the human spirit is as powerful as love, which Christ's death unto resurrection makes clear.

Let us use this past Lent as a bridge to span the gap between faith and everyday life, employing for the common good that which makes us truly human: faith, hope, and charity, the greatest of these being charity.

May the Resurrected Lord Jesus bless you and yours with great joy and peace.

Faithfully yours in the Risen Christ,

Howard J. Hubbard

Bishop of Albany

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