I am Sr. Lucille Souza, M.S.C., a Cabrini Sister, and I was pleased to be missioned on this holy ground founded by St. Frances Cabrini.

We have heard more than once that we are to live out the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ in our own lives. For Jesus, it meant living through Good Friday, Holy Saturday and the Easter Experience: suffering, dying, lying in the tomb and rising. For us, it means abiding the sad endings we experience in our lives, enduring the awkward in-between time and working for new beginnings.

Today, it is not unusual for people with good jobs to become unemployed. Companies are merged, people are let go. Or a corporate decision dictates that a high salaried executive is expendable.

The person terminated has a sudden Good Friday experience. To feel angry and victimized is normal. To let it go is not easy. But unless one is liberated from these negative feelings, it is hard to begin to the agonizing search that must happen if there is to be a new beginning, for the unemployed, getting a new job is the Easter experience.

We identify with Christ through our lives. Good Fridays and Easters keep coming. If we accept these realities as they come, we live out the Paschal Mystery of Jesus. We do this because Jesus gave us the touchstone: "Love one another as I have loved you!" Often it is simply a kind word, a restraint from scolding, a compliment. "Loving is being willing to make a sacrifice to meet the genuine need of another."

May this Lenten and Easter Season move all of us to identify with Christ all through the year.