Looking forward to Easter

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor CHERYL CRUZ Desk Editor PATRICK PANGILINAN Busines Editor NIDA A. BUENAFE Sports Editor RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

As we go through the next days that will climax with the commemoration of the suffering and death of our Saviour on the Cross that solemn Friday in Calvary, let us do our best to focus on the meaning of the sacrifices that the only Son of God had gone through for our sake. This we can do by taking upon ourselves some form of voluntary sacrifices or mortification so we can, in some way, empathize with what our Lord did in going through the torture and shame He did not have to.

And then we can look forward to what transpired on the third day after his entombment, when He proved to everyone that He meant what he had predicted about His own resurrection.

This we will commemorate on Easter Sunday, the day when the women who went to visit His tomb found out that His body was no longer there, that He had, indeed, risen, and was ready to join His Father in heaven.

On Easter Sunday, therefore, we can shed our sorrow at His passing and our fears of being left to suffer for our sins. We can then thank Him for the supreme sacrifice, and for the hope that His death and resurrection have evoked in us.

This time, and this year, especially, let us look forward to Easter Sunday as a time to give our wholehearted thanks to our Lord for all the protection He has provided us during some of the most fearful moments that had come to pass in the past months. We saw devastating earthquakes, frightful floods, tornadoes and accidents that had decimated the population of several places in the world. Those of us who were spared, should therefore express our gratitude for having been saved, or for surviving such horrors as the earth had never seen before.

As we kneel and welcome the risen Lord, let us implore Him to once again protect us and our loved ones, and especially our country, from the wrath of Nature and the reminders of our mortality that we had often ignored.

The Lord will rise again. Blessed be God, Blessed be His Holy Name.*