By Archbishop Peter A. Comensoli
When Jesus appeared among his friends after the Resurrection, the first thing he did was to show them the wounds of his crucifixion. "Here," he said to them, "see my once-nailed hands and feet; look at my pierced side." The person who stood before his friends was no ghostly hologram of someone they once knew; it was Jesus himself, alive. After three days in the tomb, and now brimming with divine energy, Jesus did not hide the wounds of his death from his friends. Instead, he carried them with him into the resurrected life.
Those transfigured wounds of Jesus matter to us, his friends today. His death was no fake; his resurrection no trick. With his own body—once wounded in death—he now brings new possibilities to us all. Our way ahead with Him does not mean a rejection of our past, but a transfiguration of it. Jesus is our hope of a new path.
This Easter, all of us are being invited to taste something of this joy of the Resurrection, to look on Jesus’ resurrected wounds and see hope for the world. This is because our own wounds and sorrows, our griefs and struggles, our anguishes and angers, have all been absorbed into the healed wounds of Jesus.
So begins my first sharing in the Easter Season with you as your archbishop. I’ve been looking forward to it, because we have been walking through loss and grief in the Church here in Melbourne, and we are so in need of the Lord who wants us to share his Easter joy.
Christ is alive; and he wants us to be alive. The Risen Lord, who will never abandon his people, is offering us the strength to set out on a new path with him. As shattered and as wounded as our local Church can seem, the Risen Lord, in his gloriously wounded body, is inviting us to share in his life and to walk with him.
Archbishop Peter Andrew Comensoli was born in the Illawarra on 25 March 1964, the fourth son and last child of the late Mick and Margaret Comensoli. He was baptised at St John Vianney Church, Fairy Meadow, the parish in which he would receive the sacraments of Christian initiation as well as priestly ordination. Undertaking an early education with the Good Samaritan Sisters and later with the Marist Fathers, Archbishop Comensoli also spent four years in the banking sector while studying Commerce at the University of Wollongong. In 1986, Archbishop Comensoli commenced his studies for the priesthood at St Patrick’s College, Manly, and was ordained for the Diocese of Wollongong on 22 May 1992. He holds a Bachelor of Theology and Bachelor of Sacred Theology from the Catholic Institute of Sydney, a Licentiate of Sacred Theology in moral theology from Accademia Alfonsiana (Rome), a Masters of Letters in moral philosophy from the University of St Andrews (Fife, Scotland) and a Doctorate of Philosophy in theological ethics from the University of Edinburgh (Scotland).
You can watch a video of the Archbishop's Easter Message online at www.melbournecatholic.org.au