In his Easter Pastoral Letter, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bucharest Ioan Robu urges believers to celebrate Easter with hearts freed from the past and to steer their lives in the right direction.
“Therefore, this is the way to celebrate Easter now: putting away the old yeast of our lives, that of sins, the yeast the Apostle talks about. Concretely, it means to give our lives the right direction, steering it towards ‘the unleavened bread of honesty and truth’, meaning towards humility and a clean life, towards continuous search for the good, as Jesus expects from us,” the prelate said.
Starting from the words of Apostle Paul in the Holy Easter Mass, Monsignor Robu called for believers to distance themselves from capital sin “because it generates other sins, other vices: pride, greed, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony and sloth.”
“For instance, pride, meaning a sneering and arrogant attitude, full of self-conceit, self-sufficiency, an attitude that tramples on everything — kindness, friendship, honour, solidarity are sacrificed to favour ambitions with their desire for praise, glory and status, power, etc. Then greed, that disorderly mix of money and material things, which generates so many other sins: theft and abuse, oppression and exploitation of one’s fellow, usury, the desire to have more, brazen luxury and lack of compassion for those humiliated and who lack, sometimes, everything. And lust, the provocation and endless search for pleasure of the senses. It is enough to listen to the news every day to see the evil this sin brings to society: murders, suicides, revenges, families torn apart, abandoned children, diseases, etc.,” the archbishop explains.
According to him, the Apostle urges for all these inclinations and sins, to celebrate Easter “to become new people, dressed and impregnated with the teaching of Jesus.”
“Saint Paul urges us to take a clear stand against that culture and mentality of the world that would like to convince us that in practice it is not possible to change a human heart, the profound workings of the human being. The apostle tells us exactly the opposite: Jesus can change humans through the gift of its grace. Let’s ask God the one rich in blessing to help us become a new mould, as the apostle says, to feel and to celebrate as it should our communion with Jesus the Risen”, the Archbishop said. More…