Blessings of hope, peace, joy and comfort to all of you on this Easter morning!

Though our campus is closed for the remainder of the academic year, our school continues online in a very vibrant and engaging way.  

I am heartened on this feast of Easter by the generosity and unwavering support of our entire Jesuit community.

Just as our Lenten journey coincided with our coronavirus journey, so too must our Easter celebration urge us on to new life and new hope that we will rise from this current health emergency in our country.

Easter is not about the past. It is about the hope that is ours now, this very day, and into the future.

Easter is filled with the promise of new things that can be realized only through love, compassion, forgiveness, reconciliation, justice and peace.

The empty tomb of Jesus’ burial is the sign of perfect hope: that in Jesus Christ all things are possible; that we can live our lives with meaning and purpose, that we can become the people God created us and calls us to be every day, even and especially in the midst of our coronavirus reality.  

May we not fear or shrink from Easter morning’s first light and the broken stones of the empty tomb, but embrace that light and the hope it promises in the Risen One who is forever in our midst.  

The Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins says of the risen Christ: “Let him Easter in us.”  Let Jesus rise in you and turn you toward the light.  Live in that light!  Let Jesus Christ Easter in you, that you might Easter in Him, who by his dying and rising has saved us and set us free! We will come to know that, more than ever, on the other side of this Pandemic crisis.  Easter’s first light promises that to us.

As a gift to all of you from our students, we offer below a beautiful “cell phone choir” rendition of Homeward Bound by Marta Keen, arranged by Jay Althouse. Performed by some of our Chamber singers and accompanied by their teacher, Rex Rallanka ‘96.

Please enjoy the talents of these students and the music they share with us.

Alleluia.  Happy Easter.   

Gratefully,

Rev. John P. McGarry, S.J.
President