By Father John Adamski

Easter is a special time for every priest, just as it is also significant for every Christian. Things tend to get a bit more hectic what with Holy Week services and Easter preparations. Nevertheless, it is a unique time because of the Christian faith in the life-death-resurrection of Jesus Christ. The believing person finds strong motivation for some confidence in the meaning and purpose of life by accepting his personal participation in this saving action of Jesus Christ.

A priest is often confronted with personal problems and suffering of people who come to see him perhaps on a daily basis. Many times there is little more that a priest can do other than listen and suggest possible steps to be taken. The Easter celebration is an occasion for the priest to celebrate with his people the reality of the new life of God. Even if everything else about a person’s life seems to be collapsing around him, the message of Easter is that it can all be conquered. Life conquers death. The joy and peace of the new life of God overcomes the suffering and anguish of daily problems.

The priest celebrates these realities with his people in ceremonies that are the most impressive Christian rituals of the entire year. The Eucharist takes on added meaning on Holy Thursday as one enters into a deeper realization of Jesus’ gift of himself for us. The annual renewal of priestly commitment to service is also an opportunity for each priest to reaffirm his dedication to God in the service of God’s people. The somber ceremonies of Good Friday are a powerful reminder that Jesus has led the way for us through his suffering and death.

Everything culminates in the celebration of the Easter Vigil in the darkness of Saturday night. Jesus himself the light has shattered forever the darkness of sin and death. The power of light is triumphant and the Church breaks into joyful song. Hopefully, priest and people realize again the crucial significance of Jesus’ paschal mystery – dying and rising so that we too might be saved. Our faith and hope have been strengthened and affirmed because Jesus is victorious.

These ceremonies and ritual events should have particular meaning for the priest of his theological/liturgical background which enables him to fully appreciate the symbolism involved. It’s a time of being personally buoyed up with the hope and optimism of Christ’s victory. Also for the priest it’s an opportunity to testify in faith, especially for those that have struggled and suffered during the year, that this is the answer. Jesus leads the way for us. The anguish of a broken family, an unfaithful love, a wavering faith, a dissatisfying job can all be healed in this saving action of Jesus. Easter is our witness to the fact that suffering is not the full picture, the total answer. All this, we believe, will be transformed in and through Christ.

Oftentimes a priest must agonize over how he might really help someone who lives in great difficulty and pain. The celebration of the Easter events is our way of saying, in faith, that those things which perhaps no human being can resolve, Jesus has taken to himself and transformed once and for all. With that sort of faith vision, there is a definite reason to hope and to keep going with the daily frustration and turmoil.

This has to be very rewarding aspect of priestly ministry. Rewarding to the individual man himself and hopefully enriching for the lives of people with whom he lives and works. It is perhaps his most unambiguous way to profess his belief in the message of Jesus Christ and the value of that message for the needs of men today.