Our Lenten journey has come to an end. He is risen, alleluia!
Throughout the Lenten season, we have posted reflections for holy days and Sundays from previously published Lenten booklets. Today, we share the final reflection from this year’s Lenten reflection booklet, Return to me with all your heart, written by Ralph McCloud. Click here for our Lent-Easter 2025 page to see all reflections shared this year, as well as links to other Lenten resources.
reflection for Easter, April 20, 2025
By Ralph McCloud
Acts 10:34a, 37-43 | Colossians 3:1-4 or 1 Corinthians 5:6b-8 | John 20:1-9 OR Luke 24:1-12
Therefore, let us celebrate the feast, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (1 Corinthians 5:8)
Christ is risen!
The critics and the haters were all wrong. Those who sought to slander and degrade Jesus were wrong as he is indeed risen! Two thousand years later, the resurrection offers us a message of hope. Despite criticism, attacks, humiliation, and even execution, hope still prevails! It is a clear and obvious reminder that despite the horrors of the cross, a glorious resurrection awaits for those who love the Lord.
In our world today, hope seems to be so elusive. Hope seems rare in the many war-torn portions of our globe. Hope seems fleeting in communities where stark poverty is prevalent and futures seem so dark. Hope can seem non-existent for so many youth who have been neglected by unjust educational systems. Hope seems scarce in communities divided by political ideologies while human suffering abounds. Hope is all the condemned inmates can cling to as they languish on death rows all over the world. But this Easter we are reminded once again of the power of God to deliver us as Jesus was delivered.
Pope Francis has invited us to participate in this year of Jubilee as pilgrims of hope. So this Easter should be different: reflective, repentant, renewed. In his opening statement, Pope Francis invites us to renewed hope: “Let us even now be drawn to this hope! Through our witness, may hope spread to all those who anxiously seek it. May the way we live our lives say to them in so many words: ‘Hope in the Lord! Hold firm, take heart and hope in the Lord!’ (Psalm 27:14) May the power of hope fill our days, as we await with confidence the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and glory, now and forever.”
Indeed, may the power of hope fill our days!
>> Click here to see more resources for prayer, study and action from this Lenten season.
Ralph McCloud served for 16 years as the director of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, an anti-poverty program of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Prior to the USCCB, Ralph worked as Division Director of Pastoral and Community Services in the Diocese of Ft. Worth, Texas. In this capacity he supervised the Departments of Family Life, Peace and Justice, African-American Ministry, Hispanic Ministry, and more. He currently serves as chair of the Catholic Mobilizing Network, is on the Leadership Group for the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University, and is a Senior Fellow at NETWORK Lobby. He has served as President of the National Association of Black Catholic Administrators and as a board member of both the National Black Catholic Congress and the Roundtable Association of Social Action Directors. At our national conference this summer in Detroit, Pax Christi USA will present Ralph with the Pax Christi USA Eileen Egan Peacemaker award, one of the latest recognitions that he has received for his years of service.