Dear CIB sisters all,
May you be experiencing the joy and peace of this Easter season. We are now almost mid-way through the season, and we thought it is time to send you an Easter message, a video Easter message in various languages from your CIB Council. Let’s continue to pray for one another and for our aching world. See below for the English text of my main message in the video, you might wish to copy and paste the message into an online translator to have the message in your own language.
Greetings to all Benedictine women of the CIB!
First, I thank you for your witness of fidelity to prayer and your life in community. I strongly believe that our communal life of prayer is more important in our world than ever. We must be women of hope and peace during this time of disorientation in our world, reminding our world of what is important in life. It is not about what we do as much as knowing who we are in the light of God, the Resurrected Jesus who has redeemed us.
I remind us all that we have so much in our monastic life that is gift and we must, from our hearts, share it freely. Let us encourage each other and our world to have courage, not fear. As my monastic friends I met in Spain last fall taught me, we can say, “Animo!” Take courage! Christ has risen.
“Let us get up then, at long last, for the Scriptures rouse us when they say: It is high time for us to arise from sleep (Romans 13:11).
Let us open our eyes to the light that comes from God, and our ears to the voice from heaven
. . . Run while you have the light of life, that the darkness of death may not overtake you.”
(RB Prologue 8-10, 13)
Happy Easter! Frohe Ostern! Joyeuses Pâques! Pasaka njema! Feliç Pasqua! Feliz Pascua! Wesołych Świąt Wielkanocnych! Buona Pasqua! Gelukkig Pasen! Jabulela iphasika! Linksmų Velykų! Sretan Uskrs! 행복한 부활절! Щасливого Великодня! Maligayang Pasko ng Pagkabuhay! Chúc mừng lễ Phục sinh! 复活节快乐! Beatus paschae!
Pax.
S. Lynn Marie McKenzie, OSB