SAN DIEGO – The following is the message delivered by Bishop Robert W. McElroy just before the start of the telecast of the diocese’s Easter Sunday Mass on NBC7 San Diego:
“This is an Easter unlike any other in our recent lifetimes.
“It is an Easter in which there are shadows that surround us; the shadows of illness, the shadows of isolation, and the shadows of loneliness.
It is a day like all Easters in which the signs of hope abound in our world. The voices and laughter of children who celebrate this Easter Day, in so many ways filled with joy and happiness and the exhilaration of youth, of the heroism of our healthcare workers and first responders; and all who are making great sacrifices in these days to reach out to those in greatest need.
“Of the love of family, even when it cannot be expressed in firsthand in an embrace; that love of family, which is sustaining and gives us deep hope in our lives and validates all that is good in the world.
“And particularly this Easter, and in effect more ardently and more deeply and more profoundly in this particular Easter, it is the resurrection of Christ, that for us as Christians, we find a special hope.
“It is the strongest hope that we have in this world. For our hope is founded in God, and God’s victory over death is the sign that God stands with us.
“Sometimes we misunderstand what Christian hope is. Christian hope is not the belief that everything always comes out right. That’s merely optimism. Optimism is about tomorrow. Hope is about today.
“Hope is understanding that in this moment of our lives when times are tough, it is then that especially God comes to us and embraces us and carries us through.
“And for this reason, this season, this Easter of all Easters, is a time of insurmountable hope because it is the time when God says to us most profoundly, ‘At this moment and always, I will be there.’”
