Dear Parishioners of Mary Immaculate and Saint Rose,
A blessed and happy Easter to each of you! Jesus is victorious over sin and death!  He is risen! And because He is risen we rejoice because we too share the hope of everlasting life.
Now that I have voiced the victory cry, I must also acknowledge that this is by far the most bizarre Easter of my life!  Who would have ever conceived that there would be a time that we would not be able to gather together to celebrate the greatest feast of our liturgical year?  We are live streaming the Easter Mass and that is better than not having anything at all, but it is still far from what we expect Easter to be.
Even the early Christians could hide in the darkness of the catacombs and celebrate the Eucharist. But we face a different type of enemy and there is no hiding from it!  At the same time we still have to shout our Alleluia! Because it is our cry of victory. And even though we can’t celebrate as normal, we can still pray and raise our voices in praise of our Risen Savior.
It is my hope that within a few weeks, we will once again be able to gather to celebrate Mass and receive our Lord in Holy Communion. I hope this time of exile from Mass has led you to a deeper appreciation for the holy Mass and a greater hunger to receive our Lord in Holy Communion. I know that for me, even though I still celebrate Mass and receive Communion everyday, it has helped me to appreciate more how connected we are as the Body of Christ. And when one part of the body is absent, we all suffer a sense of loss.
I really miss seeing the people of God when I am at the altar. I even miss hearing the babies cry! I am truly longing for the day when we can all gather together to laugh, to sing, to pray, to praise our God. I was telling Ann Gray that when we get beyond this, I want to have a big party where we can all just hug each other!
So this isn’t Easter as normal, but we celebrate Easter for the next forty days. And whether we can gather or not, we are united in the Lord. So join with me in rejoicing, because
Jesus is risen from the dead!
Msgr. Cox
The Resurrection of Christ, Tintoretto (1565)