From the Desk of Fr. Daniel

Dear Friends,

Happy Easter!

Ludwig Wittgenstein once offered, “It is love that believes the resurrection.” I agree with him. Let me try to explain.

Wittgenstein is not saying that Jesus’ rising bodily from the dead cannot be known. The resurrection of Jesus is almost certain historical fact (check out N.T. Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God or Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ for the relevant arguments), and it can be known as such.

Wittgenstein is proposing that the heart – the very center of our being – needs to be saved. The heart, then, is the right place of faith, and the heart entrusts itself to the beloved - the heart believes by loving!

My friends, the risen Jesus is the first part of God’s re-created world, set free from the destroying forces of sin and death. We enter this new world, we live in this new world, by LOVE. In light of his resurrection, we are invited to trust and follow Jesus. Both of these actions are informed by the mind, but they are movements of the heart and the whole self. And yes, they are fueled by... LOVE!

Trusting and following Jesus - especially in these times of crisis - we persevere in loving and serving God with everything we’ve got all the way through and all the way to the end. Love has conquered death, my friends. What obstacles can love not conquer in our hearts, in our lives, and in the world?

In the Peace of the Risen Christ,

Father Daniel

δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ