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WE celebrate EASTER!!

September 19, 2024

Dear Friends,

Celebrating the Lord's Easter, With the words of our dear friend and vicar of Matosinhos, Fr Francisco Andrade, we wish you all the best.

Christ's Easter is the victory of Love!

We know God's love for us because we believe in him. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God in him" (1Jn 4:16).

This is the most precious of truths: ‘We believe in him’, definitively and in all its fullness because our experience persuades us that God's love is omnipotent and without limits. If under the Old Covenant love was as powerful as death, under the New Covenant love is stronger than death, because ‘death has been swallowed up in victory’ (1 Cor 15.54). We are fast approaching the great night for us Christians, Easter night. I therefore address to you with great affection and tenderness a very simple appeal: On this holy Easter night, let us recognise this ‘love’ in the person of Jesus Christ, the beloved Son of the Father who offered his life for all of us on the cross, rising again on the third day to give us more life, not just any life, but a life full of grace, a life in abundance. I repeat, let us recognise this love, let us keep it among us, let us be witnesses to it in the world, which is increasingly affected by indifference and insensitivity, by war and violence of all kinds, by contempt for the most precious gift - the gift of life.

Let's not ‘love’ each other. Let's love each other! Let's love each other and arm ourselves against the senseless and criminal attempts to sow hatred and animosity between us, between different peoples; let's keep the capacity to love, to forgive, to trust each other.

If this flame in us is extinguished, if our heart is no longer burning within us, if we no longer have love, what meaning will our prayer, our celebrations, our faith and our hope have? We can't and shouldn't pretend any longer, otherwise we are betraying the Lord himself and deceiving ourselves.

May the Risen Lord grant each and every one of us the strength and wisdom to guard Holy Orthodoxy, to guard our Church, our diocese, our parish and our family in the spirit of love, unity and peace.

Allow me to address a special word of comfort to the sick and to those who in this unique hour of the world are going through greater trials and needs: I am with you, if only through my humble prayer.

A joyful Resurrection of Christ to each and every one of you!

TO ALL A HOLY AND HAPPY EASTER

A huge XIIIIIIII! Fátima C. Brízio

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)