Press Releases20 Apr 11

Archbishop Alan Harper's Easter Message 2011

On the day before Mothering Sunday a young officer of the PSNI was killed by an explosive device. The sorrow and condemnation of that event was registered in every corner of this island and much further afield. The pictures beamed out across the media of the honour guard for Constable Ronan Kerr drawn up outside the church in Beragh, Co Tyrone, where his funeral took place, were of a community united and galvanized by the atrocity. They were there to witness and to demonstrate that things have changed irrevocably and that we will not be a people paralysed by the past. I cannot but reflect that this same murdered policeman, in his commitment and eagerness to serve the whole community, would have responded to anyone who might call upon him for help and that such help would have been offered as readily to those who murdered him as to any other member of society.

When Christ died upon the cross he offered his life for all of us – for those who drove the nails into his hands just as much as for those who loved him. When Christ rose from the dead those same enemies who had engineered his execution were brought news of his resurrection. They resorted to a lie by bribing the guards to spread the story that ‘his disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep’. Neither the unlawful execution nor the subsequent attempt to rewrite history availed to turn back the clock: new life, new hope and a fresh and powerful sense of new direction and new purpose had been released into the world.  

The first words of the risen Lord, repeated over and over, were ‘Peace be with you.’ Let that word of peace bless the lips of everyone in Ireland this Easter: The peace of the Lord be always with you!

++Alan