EMPTY ECHOES: Christ is risen!

This line, down to the exclamation point, will be repeated in today's torrent of Easter greetings, emails, letters, messages, editorials and homilies taking off from the glorious resurrection of Christ.

Would the flurry of messages just fly like empty echoes bouncing off a hard rock?

Will those Hallmark-like Easter messages mean anything, change anything? Will they resurrect a dying faith? Will it bind whole again a fractured nation?

Did YOU wake up today as new and as resplendent as an Easter morning?

* * *

MESSAGE MISSED: We have gone through this routine before. We pack off for a long Lenten weekend, rushing in different directions in search of something that is not even clear to many of us.

After days of lolling somewhere, we return home haggard, tired despite the supposed respite. Back in the house, we come upon the garbage and the mess we had left in our rush to go out on a Holy Week trip.

Caught in the fun and frolic of the weekend, is it possible most of us may have missed the central message of Lent culminating in the joyous news of His resurrection?

* * *

BUSINESS AS USUAL: After greeting one another a perfunctory “Happy Easter!” and exclaiming “Christ is risen!” with a pretense of meaning it, we feel having performed our social obligation.

We then return to the old habits and selfish attitude dominating the rest of the year.

The President and her close associates go back to their sandbagged political trenches. Lawmakers reopen their hate-driven circus and call in the TV crews. Media again forage for exciting news and trick headlines. Local executives, low on funds, are again ready to sign more manifestos. The quarrel over juicy contracts and mega-commissions resume. Businessmen step up their money-making operations. The poor go back to their accustomed poverty (actually they have never left it). Priests and ministers, some of them politicized, go back to their pulpits. The mobs trying to bring down the government will spill out in the streets as soon as the funds are released. Road rage and pollution, as well as motorized arrogance of power, will soon suffocate us.

Effective tomorrow, everything will be back to normal. Back to madness. As if Christ never lived, died and resurrected to save each and every one of us.

* * *

UNITY: To us 88 million or so Filipinos scattered over some 7,000 islands, belonging to scores of tribes speaking diverse dialects and torn apart by political combat, the proper Lenten message is one of Unity.

But to unite feuding factions fired up by conflicting concerns, there must be first an admission of wrongdoing where appropriate, restitution and a firm resolve not to do it again.

Repentance or a confession of guilt, however, is seen by some as too humiliating. The biblical admonition that he who humbles himself shall be exalted is lost on them.

We may have to pray, or pressure, our leaders to wake up to the need to humble ourselves so we can move along the road to unity.

* * *

AT THE VATICAN: Unity -- in the context of ecumenism -- was also the theme of the sermon of Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa in the Good Friday celebration in St. Peter's Basilica presided over by Pope Benedict XVI.

The preacher of the Pontifical Household said that “unity, before it is a goal to be sought, is a gift to be received and affirmed.”

Cantalamessa recalled John the Evangelist saying that “Jesus had to die for the nation, and not only for the nation, but also to gather into one the dispersed children of God.”

John, he said, also noted the soldiers at the foot of the cross dividing Christ's garments, and casting lots to see who would get the tunic that was woven in one piece.

“That the tunic is woven from the top down means that the unity brought by Christ comes from above, from the heavenly Father,” Cantalamessa said. “Because of this, it cannot be broken apart by those who receive it, but must be received in its integrity.”

He affirmed that Christian unity will be the work of the Holy Spirit, “if we let him guide us.” He said: “God has poured out the Holy Spirit in a new and unusual way upon millions of believers from every Christian denomination.”

* * *

BASED ON LOVE: Cantalamessa added his voice to others in the Church promoting not just a doctrinal ecumenism, but a spiritual one.

He said: “If the unity of the disciples must be a reflection of the unity between Father and Son, it must above all be a unity of love, because such is the unity that reigns in the Trinity.

“The extraordinary thing about this way to unity based on love is that it is already now wide open before us. We cannot be hasty in regard to doctrine because differences exist and must be resolved with patience in the appropriate contexts.”

He offered a reflection on St. Paul's hymn to charity: “Love is patient. It does not seek its own interests. It does not brood over injury -- if necessary, of the injury done to others! It does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It does not rejoice over the difficulties of other Churches, but delights in their successes. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

* * *