Readings: Second Sunday of Easter (or Sunday of Divine Mercy) | USCCB 

Peace be with you.

“Trees Die Standing…” 

Pope Leo recently encouraged disciples to cultivate a personal friendship with Jesus. A relationship not content with measuring the intensity of external activities but centered on the fruitfulness of friendship with Him. He used a powerful image: “Trees die standing,” he said referring to the reality that a tree can appear strong and healthy on the outside, while inwardly decaying. 

The Gospel scene is in the upper room. Just three days after the most devastating experience of their lives – the suffering and death of their Friend and Lord – the Apostles are locked in fear. The same men who fled, denied, and abandoned Jesus now sit under the burden of shame, and regret in the very place where they promised their fidelity to Him at the Last Supper. 

Into that space, He appears. He does not rebuke them nor remind them of their failures. Instead, He speaks: “Peace be with you.” And He says it again.  

He not only offers them forgiveness but entrusts them with it. He sends them forth to extend that same mercy to others. The mercy that brings the peace of being made right with God.  

This is the heart of Divine Mercy: that we are not left to decay within while trying to appear healthy on the outside. We are fully known and deeply loved, even in our continual need for mercy, and that experience is the peace of Jesus, the peace that the world cannot give. 

May our Easter joy emanate from the peace of Jesus and may we accept the simple and humble mission to carry that peace into the lives of others. So that we could be the bridge to other’s encounter and friendship with Jesus. 

Trees die standing but those who remain on the Vine will never die. 

God bless you.

Very Rev Jonathan Kelly 

Rector and Vice President 

Saint John Vianney College Seminary 

Readings: The Resurrection of the Lord | USCCB 

For Christians, the hope of Easter is not a fragile hope. It is not contingent on the peaceful resolution of our raging wars, or the curing of a terrible disease, or a positive economic outlook, or the restoration of long-frayed family relations. The hope of Easter does not depend on how things are going in our lives or in our world.   

The hope of Easter emerges from Christ’s victory over death – an event that revealed a reality that extends for all eternity, never to be dislodged by whatever tumult or travail may come. The truth of Easter is a reason for hope, now and forever. 

Keeping our eyes on eternity doesn’t mean we ignore the present world, of course. As C.S. Lewis observes, “If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were . . . those who thought most of the next.” But as we work for a more just here-and-now, the crosses we bear must never obscure the ultimate hope that sustains us. 

As Pope Leo has explained, “Easter does not eliminate the cross, but defeats it in the miraculous duel that changed our human history.” And in our time, which is “marked by so many crosses,” the Risen Christ, through the Holy Spirit, “continues to remind us of this, so that we can be His witnesses even where human history does not see light on the horizon.”  

Easter calls us to lift our gaze, to remember the truth that is the backdrop for all human existence, striving, and struggle – the light on the horizon that we know is present, even when life clouds our view. Easter is a truth by which we are transformed every day. And to which we are called to bear witness with our lives. 

I pray for a happy – and hopeful – Easter for you and yours. 

President Rob Vischer