Dear Members of the Virtual Salesian Community

-We have begun the period of fifty days between Easter and Pentecost that the Church celebrates as one continuous feast - "one great Sunday" as St. Athanasius once penned - during which we contemplate the power and promise of the Resurrection.When commenting on the immensity of this redemptive act in the life of Jesus - and in the lives in each and every one of us - perhaps less is more. At the end of Book IX of his Treatise on the Love of God, Francis de Sales wrote: "Let us take up the affections suitable to the service of charity, so that we may die naked upon the cross with our divine Savior and afterwards rise again with him in the new man. 'Love is strong as death,' to enable us to forsake all other things. It is as magnificent as the resurrection to adorn us with glory and honor."During this Easter season, may we experience the uplifting - and redemptive - power that comes with dedicating ourselves to the "service of charity." That is, to the love of God and one another.

(Rev) Michael S. Murray, OSFS
Director, De Sales Spirituality Center
"Practical Paths to Holiness"
www.oblates.org/spirituality