April 20, 2025

Dear friends in Christ,

Happy Easter, friends. Jesus is risen. He is risen, indeed!

In my years as a priest and pastor for our diocese, I learned a really important lesson about life as a priest, “Take Monday off,” he said. “Just feel what the Apostles felt.”

I didn’t really understand this until one Easter Monday. After all the palms and processions, special hymns, foot washing, sacraments, and Easter lilies, I woke up on Easter Monday and I felt it. A tiredness in my bones from all the late nights and liturgies, sure, but something else. A feeling of lightness. A feeling of deep joy. Excitement and stillness co-existing. Certainty that He had accomplished what He said he would. Simply put, it was the Resurrection.

So, what did I do the rest of that day? The usual – I made some coffee and I prayed. I rested. Not much else, much like any other Monday off. But deep down, there was this budding sense of wonder. It really happened. He really rose. Nothing is ever going to be the same.

This experience has returned to me each year without fail – a great gift, I have no doubt, from God. The gift of feeling what the Apostles felt. The sense that the world will never be the same because Jesus Christ has risen from the dead. It’s a gift that has fueled my priesthood, and I pray – fervently and daily – that it is a gift that will be received with joy by everyone who celebrates Easter.

The world is not an easy place. You know as well as I do that many of our neighbors do not know the joy of the Resurrection. Many of them are anxious or burdened by great difficulties – job loss, economic uncertainty, family arguments, addiction, and more. Jesus Christ, our hope and our salvation, is not a magic pill that can make these things go away. But He is the firm foundation upon which a life of joy and peace can be built, a life in which difficulties have meaning and become our path to holiness.

This Easter, I want to thank you for saying yes to our risen Lord by your participation at Saint Mary Church of the Assumption. It is your witness – through your prayer, worship, and works of mercy – that proclaims to the world that “the good life” (meaning eternal life) is possible through Jesus Christ.

I pray that this Easter season is an inexhaustible source of strength for you and your family. Together, let’s take in all that God has to offer us – for our own sake, for our neighbors’ sakes, and for the sake of the entire world.

From our very hearts, we shout: HE IS RISEN! Alleluia!

With Easter joy,

Fr. Joe Geleney
Pastor
Saint Mary Church of the Assumption
Waco, Texas