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Show THE JOYS OF EASTER. 'Tis spring the time of the year's youthfulncss. Emerging from dismal winter, Xature renews, her grace and strength and sprightliness. The flowers, flow-ers, the budding trees, the vegetation and the songs of birds proclaim a new life, full of freshness and joy. 'Tis Easter! And emerging from the penitential peniten-tial season, the Church intones her alleluias and hosannas to the Great Creator, the Giver of all Good the Father of the Son who gave us the Faith and the Light. She surrounds this Easter Festival with all the tokens of faith, love and grateful exultation, because it is the commemoration commemora-tion of the essential proof of the Divinity of her Founder. At Christmas we rejoiced over the birth of the promised Redeemer. We then followed His life, step by step. During Lent we put in order our spiritual household. The mere observance of the Lenten regulations and services forced us to review our past manner of living, to note our past failures, to realize how far short wc come in our daily conduct from practicing the law of love and of mercy. During Holy Week we are compelled to recognize the. immensity of Christ's love for us by meditating upon and recalling the immensity of His mental and physical sufferings for the sake of man. Rut, oh! the glory of the Resurrection that belief-commanding proof of Christ's Divinity! Xo wonder that tongue and pen and brush of men have striven in futile effort to express it. Other great men have been born, have led wonderful lives of self-abnegation and of enlightenment for their fellows; have formulated religious systems and hare even been worshipped as gods; but One alone, born of woman, has ever given or ever will give the proof of His immortality, and supernatural power, by victory over death; and He was Christ. That proof was necessary to complete His work and to make the acceptance of His teaching binding on man's reason. The miracle of the Resurrection compels us all to say with-Thomas : "Lord, I believe." be-lieve." And how the history of the ages confirms the truth of His words unto Peter: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock shall I build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." What a spiritual comfort to the Catholic is the knowledge that he belongs to 'the one true Church of Christ! While all around he sees the members of other creeds abandoning the old moorings, morality be coming a matter of convenience, systems of theology the-ology being revised, liberalized and modernized; he turns to the teachings of the Spouse of Him who arose from the dead two thousand years ago, and finds in that, teaching quiet of mind and satisfaction satisfac-tion for the-cravings of his heart; he finds that peace of mind which accompanies absence of doubt, because he knows that, the Church is the depository and custodian of the unchangeable truth and is the infallible teacher of morality. In the fullness of his satisfied heart he joins his Mother in celebrat-ing celebrat-ing this great anniversary, and from the depths of his soul he shouts exultingly: "Hosanna!" |