Christ is Risen! Christ is Truly Risen. Dear friends any words I write pale and shrink by comparison to these words of the radical joy of the Resurrection. Greetings on this day in which the Church is most alive, in the truth of the joy, hope and possibilities of the saving reality of Christ Jesus. Last night I had the joy of attending the Easter Vigil at our home based newman center at San Jose State University. Every seat was taken in our little chapel as we lit the new fire and once again welcomed Christ the Light of the World into the year of grace 2005. Students received both baptism and confirmation. The power and love the Holy Spirit flowed as we called down the Spirit of God and the Saints of God to intercede for us in the sacraments of baptism and confirmation. In the eyes of those to be baptized and confirmed I identified with the hunger, love and search for God ever ancient and ever new. Centered in the proclamation of the Resurrection the Vigil moves like the ninth symphony of Beethoven from darkness to Light, from despair to Hope, Christ is Our Light and Christ will never be extinguished!

The apostles and disciples who are eyewitnesses to the Risen Lord do not offer us a picture of simply accepting that Jesus is Risen. Rather in the accounts of Easter we see men and women struggling to believe. From the Apostles locked in the upper room to doubting Thomas the disciples refuse to accept a myth or untruth about Jesus. Yet the truth "He is Risen" grows stronger and stronger. Throughout this Easter season we will see the apostles proclaiming Jesus as Risen Lord, their love and commitment now complete.

Friends what is the Easter hope for you and I over 2,000 years removed from the truth that He Is Risen. We are invited and coaxed by a Risen Lord alive in the Spirit to believe. However Jesus does not stop there. Rather the Risen Lord says: "I am with you all days..." One way I experience the resurrection of Jesus is in the little resurrections of life that God's grace is always inviting us into. God always invites you and me into love, renewal and recovery. We can come to know our own dying and rising whenever we opt to love and service, whenever we forgive and heal ourselves and others. These little resurrections are a forecast and taste of Life Eternal. The apostle Mark writing of Jesus' rising at first greets us with simply an empty tomb. Our faith is to take the next step. Only later scripture scholars report was a full resurrection story added to Mark's account. Mark invites each reader to their own account of Resurrection based in the faith of Jesus as Risen Lord. Friends may you and I rise the tombs of what keeps us from a life lived in love to God, others and ourselves.

From all of us The Community of Hand of Help at Holy Trinity Monastery our love and prayers this Easter. Christ is Risen, Christ is Truly Risen.

Brother Fred Buerman ob.OSB, Mrs. Mary McCarthy Ob.OSB, Father Henri Capdeville OSB, Gabriel Hulsey, President of Hand of Help and Josef Jordan, Jr. Webmaster of Hand of Help. (Please visit our web site at www.handofhelp.info for updates and pictures of Easter Joy.)

Dear Friends, Greetings and Peace! Once again it is a joy to be in touch in these Holy Days of Jesus' journey back to the Father. Over the years I always seek to celebrate the days of Easter with a community with whom I am deeply involved in ministry. The past two years have found me at Catholic Campus Ministry at San Jose State University. A small, warm and nurturing church is home to our campus community. Yesterday we celebrated the Liturgy of Good Friday. Today we make ready for the Vigil of Easter. There is a darkness and light about the Good Friday liturgy. Jesus the Lord is not a superman who can avoid death, leap tall buildings and stop the world on its axis. Jesus the Lord rather enters into the abject darkness of life and begs us to know that Love is at the core of all life. God takes our darkness to the Heart of God and cradles it like a mother rocking a child. Somber is the atmosphere of the Good Friday celebration. One of the most tender parts of the liturgy is the adoration of the cross. One by one all of us are called to meet the suffering Lord and allow that suffering Lord to meet us in the darkness of our lives. Yesterday one by one many of us did just that. A gentle urging comes from the cross: love and forgive yourself, know that God does.

Friends another part of the Good Friday liturgy are the petitions offered in the beginning of the celebration after the readings. The Church shows a depth of openness and understanding for the faith journey of every person. All people are prayed for and honored from committed Christians to committed atheists. Our prayers place all in the care of God. A wonderful change in the Good Friday liturgy is our outreach and honor of the Jewish people. Pope John the 23 in the 1960s led the way as he changed prayers for the Jewish people from a commendation to welcome. Meeting with rabbis and Jewish leaders Pope John rose from his papal throne, embraced them and using his baptismal name proclaimed: "I am Joseph your brother" referring to the story of Joseph in the Old Testament welcoming his estranged brothers.

Dear Friends, may God cradle our darkness and pain. May the cross of Good Friday led you and me to hear as did the good thief: "This day you will be with me in paradise." I look forward to sharing reflections of Easter early on Easter Sunday morning. Blessings, Brother Fred Buerman ob.OSB, Mrs. Mary McCarthy ob.OSB, Father Henri Capdeville OSB, Gabriel Hulsey, President of Hand of Help and Josef Jordan, Jr., web master of Hand of Help. (please visit our renewed site at www.handofhelp.info).

Dear Friends the Lord Jesus, the Passover of God be ours on this Holy Thursday. One of the treasures of Holy Thursday is the intimacy of Jesus dining, forming and nurturing his apostles. The "Great Discourse" of the Last Supper has Jesus saying again and again: "Do not let your hearts be troubled or be scared; you believe in God, believe also in me." The Jesus of Holy Thursday takes bread and wine and invites us into the very being of God. Take and eat Jesus says, "My flesh is meat indeed, my blood is drink indeed." Jesus on Holy Thursday takes us into the life of the parables, a radical new way of looking at life. Giving us his flesh and blood is the road into Life in the Spirit.

Washing of the disciples’ feet offers a way of human relationships going against the ways of the world. Jesus washes his surprised apostles’ feet and calls them to servant leadership. Washing the feet is intimate and nurturing. Jesus says as I have done so should you if you be my disciple. My friends we are called to wash the feet of one another day in and day out. Take and eat, take and care, take and serve is the Jesus of Holy Thursday. In the world Jesus says "you will have affliction but take courage I have overcome the world." "Love one another as I have loved you." The truth that Our God eats and walks with us is the reality of Holy Thursday. Our God models for us the wisdom that to love another is to see the face of God.

May we live Holy Thursday in radical and loving care for one another. I look forward to sharing with you on Good Friday as our God walks with us into death. May the Lord Jesus continue to be our partner on the journey. May the same Jesus who "came from the Father and goes back to the Father" take you and I on our journey. Prayers, hopes and joys to all of you as we begin these days of the Easter Tritium.

Peace, love and prayers from Fred Buerman ob.OSB, Mary McCarthy ob.OSB, Father Henri Capdeville OSB, Gabriel Hulsey President, Josef Jordan Jr. webmaster and the community of Hand of Help at Holy Trinity Monastery.

Greetings and Peace dear friends! It is a joy to be in touch with all of you after being so involved these last two weeks with our annual Hand of Help board meeting. The meeting was a blessed experience of great gifts and new directions for Hand of Help with a deeply involved and committed group of board and advisors. There will be more on our details about our meeting in the upcoming week. In fact, you will read some sharing from some of our board and key advisors.

As we begin Holy Week my thoughts are drawn to a retreat I had the honor of being a part, The Busy Persons Retreat. Coordinated by Sister Marcia Krause OP Hand of Help board member and director of Catholic Campus Ministry at San Jose State University, 23 busy students made a commitment last week to make a retreat in the midst of their schedules of work, study and social lives. Sister Marcia recruited six of us to be spiritual guides matching us up with three to four students as spiritual guides. The students made a commitment to a half hour of prayer and a half hour of spiritual direction for four days. They also made a commitment to commence the retreat with Sunday liturgy, sharing and reflection. The retreat ended on Thursday evening with another hour of prayer, reflection and group sharing.

What a joy in the Spirit these young people are. Listening to their spiritual journeys I am humbled in their passion for God, others and the world around them. I am also humbled by how God seems to be responding and caring for them. I have come to see that a spiritual guide needs to listen, pray, reflect and not get in the way of the Holy Spirit taking these young people and all of us into a future beyond our wildest dreams. Friends the retreat also reminds me that the journey of Lent into the death and resurrection of Jesus is one we make together in our commitment to the God at the core of our being yet reaching out to us from the core of another's being. The young people on retreat this past week at San Jose State, taught me this truth.

We are invited this Holy Week to walk together in Jesus into His suffering, death and resurrection. Each of the precious days of: Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday I will send you a spiritual email your reflections, comments and prayers are balm to my spirit seeking unity in the Holy Spirit. May our Holy Week take you and me ever more deeply into the mystery and reality of the radical love of God at the core of all life. Blessings and peace dear friends from Brother Fred Buerman ob.OSB, Mary McCarthy ob.OSB, Father Henri Capdeville OSB, Josef Jordan Jr. our new web master and the community of Hand of Help at Holy Trinity Monastery.

Greetings and peace! A blessed Lent to all of us. One of the truths about this time of Lent is that it takes us to the sources of our faith to walk with the Lord into his cross, death and resurrection. In the midst of our Lenten walk treasures of spirituality ever ancient and ever new are offered us in the Spirit. One of these treasures is the concept of angels. I offer you some graced sharing about this. One spiritual writer asks: "For what is it that angels do? They bring us good news. They open our eyes to moments of wonder, to lovely possibilities, to exemplary people to the idea that God is here in our midst. They lift our hearts and give us wings." Joan Wester Anderson. Taking time to reflect perhaps we all have people in our lives who are angels. This coming weekend is the annual Hand of Help board meeting. Hand of Help is a mission society in the Benedictine tradition. Our mission is to mentor young adults in prayer, service and community. Many angels help us in this mission. I look forward to sharing about some of our angels in the email next week. For now I ask that we stop, consider and invite the peace of the Spirit into Lent filled truth that: God is here in our midst. Over the past week name and pray for some angels in your life. Have you been blessed by the kindness of strangers? Has someone looked after us on the highways and byways of our lives? More and more I experience that God is closer to us than we are to our selves always saying in the angels of our lives: Fear not, come walk with me in the journey of Lent to the hill of Calvary, the tomb and finally into eternal life. Friends I thank you for being angels to Hand of Help and myself. God keep and guide. Keep in touch and know how much we love and treasure all of you. Next week I am going to introduce our new web master Josef Jordan, Jr. I am asking Josef to share about himself and his faith. Our thanks to our pioneer web master Victor Valdez for laying a good foundation and staying with Hand of Help as a resource and in research. Joy and peace, Brother Fred Buerman ob.OSB, Mary McCarthy ob.OSB, Father Henri Capdeville OSB and the Community of Hand of Help at Holy Trinity Monastery.

Greetings and Peace! I wish to welcome all those coming to the 2005 Board meeting for Hand of Help beginning Friday March 4 at the Motherhouse for the Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose in Fremont, CA. We are so happy to have those of you coming and those of you who are praying for us.
In St. Benedict, Fred Buerman, Ob. OSB