Easter Message: Catholic Bishops' Conference wishes peace and prosperity

"Light up the new fires of Truth, Loving Kindness, Compassion and Tolerance"

Christians all over the world celebrate the feast of Easter which is the great mystery at the core of our Christian faith. The good news of Easter is that Jesus Christ mankind's Redeemer is risen from the dead. Death, the last enemy of man has been vanquished and horizons of a new life have appeared: he is alive! Belief in the Resurrection is vital to the Christian believer as St. Paul the Church's earliest missionary emphasizes, for without this truth all preaching is useless and faith is in vain. Bereft of the Resurrection we are to be the most pitied among all the unfortunate ones on earth.

Easter hails the definitive victory over the power of death and suffering and leads us to the illumination coming from the glorious Light of the Risen One. From the light of Christ radiates true peace and hope.

In the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ we see enacted the drama of the battle raging between truth and falsehood, violence and compassion, sin and righteousness, and finally death and life. In all these, life was victorious at the end. While we rejoice in the glory of Easter, we find ourselves still amidst the powers of evil and darkness that engulf our beloved country and its people.

The Light of Truth and justice, the genuine spirit of love and service, the humane qualities of compassion and loving kindness seem to a great extent eclipsed by the spiral of violence, hatred and mistrust which keep destroying the avenues for peaceful dialogue and serene judgment.

These are so essential for national reconciliation, peace and prosperity that are the deepest felt aspirations of our people.

However, to our shock and dismay, the exact contrary has been proven by the recent fearful incident when the lives of a group of high-ranking diplomats were put in very grave danger.

The spirit of intransigence on the one hand and that of extreme nationalism on the other, continue to be serious obstacles to any possible ongoing effort towards the resolution of the national conflict.

We are therefore in dire need of a passing over from this sad state of affairs to one of promise and hope.

This can be achieved, we repeat, only through a radical transformation leading to change in attitudes striving to root out the interior rebellion of our hearts and through an honest political will to pursue the peace process along the path of a negotiated political settlement, if a new era is to be ushered in for the country.

The Lord of Easter left us his personal peace, the kind of peace that the world cannot give or take away. He called all who strive to be peace-makers blessed and indeed worthy of being declared children of God (Matthew 5;9), for this is the beginning of a new network of relationships with God and our neighbour. The Bible presents the Risen Lord breaking bread with his dear disciples, blessing them in their daily tasks, accompanying them on their journeys, allaying their fears and calling them to touch his wounds and become men of strong faith. He bequeathed to us the gift of true peace that comes only from Him (John 14:27). Peace, shalom, is the greeting of the Risen Saviour (John 20:19). In the light of these resurrection narratives we too feel the need of experiencing the presence of the Risen Christ and look to him as the sole anchor of hope, strength and a harbinger of new life devoid of fear and defeat by evil.

Easter impels us to carry forward our search for the paths of victory over evil both personal and collective. It is a call to build up a new way of living. It is an invitation to enter into its spirit of peace, joy, brotherhood and faith.

The Paschal candle, Easter's icon, lit in our churches at the solemn liturgy of the Easter Vigil will radiate its light in the weeks ahead recalling our commitment to battle valiantly in driving away from our midst all shadows that still linger in our land.

The Sinhala and Tamil New Year celebrations happily coinciding with the Easter week augur well to reinforce the call to all citizens to jettison the old leaven of divisiveness, mistrust and violence and to light up the new fires of truth, loving-kindness, compassion and tolerance.

The Easter Light of the Risen Lord will empower us in helping one another rise from the depths of misery plaguing us as a country and awaken us to a new land of peace, freedom and prosperity.