“So I beseech you…let us keep God’s commandments with all our might, so that we might enjoy both present and future good things, that is, the very vision of Christ. To this may we all attain by the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, unto Whom be glory unto the ages. Amen.” ~~~ Saint Symeon the New Theologian
To the Reverend Clergy, Monastics, and Faithful of the Diocese of the South:
Beloved in the Risen Lord,Pascha has come, radiant, all-joyful, and full of light. Yet, as the holy Symeon the New Theologian reminds us, this feast is not only a remembrance of what once occurred, but a mystery that is given to us now: the Resurrection of Christ is revealed, not only in the past, but within the very depths of the human heart.
For Christ is risen, not as a distant event to be admired, but as a living power to be known. He descends into the tomb of our repentance, enters into the hidden places of the soul, and raises us up with Himself. This is the true Pascha: that we who were dead through sin might live again through union with Him Who is Life.
And so the Church dares to say not “having believed,” but “having beheld the Resurrection of Christ.” For the Gospel entrusted to us is not an idea, nor an ideology, but a revelation: the light of the Risen Lord shining forth in those who, by faith and by the keeping of His commandments, come to know Him in the Holy Spirit.
This, beloved, is both our gift and our responsibility.
In these days, as our Diocese continues to grow—welcoming many from a wide range of backgrounds—we must take care that what we proclaim is nothing less than the fullness of this life in Christ. Not a reduced Gospel, not a merely cultural Orthodoxy, but the living Tradition: faith made radiant through works, doctrine inseparable from experience, the Mysteries received and lived.
For faith without this life is in danger of becoming abstract; and works without this life, mere activity. But where Christ is known, truly known, there the soul is raised, illumined, and made capable of worship “in spirit and in truth.”
Let us, then, press on, not only to celebrate Pascha, but to become Paschal people: men and women in whom Christ lives, in whom His Resurrection is manifest, in whom His light is not hidden.
And let us give thanks: for the zealous and for the weak, for those who have labored greatly and those who struggle still. The Lord, in His mercy, receives all, and calls each of us further into repentance, life, and indeed, into Himself.
May the Risen Christ, Who tramples down death by death, raise us up with Himself, grant us to behold His glory, and make of this Diocese a true witness to His Resurrection, for the life of the world.
Christ is risen! Indeed He is risen!
With love in the Risen Lord,
+Alexander
Archbishop of Dallas and the South
St John’s Adult Education 