Christians find comfort in Easter message

Diana Aguilar arrived in the United States in March and was apprehensive about spending her first Easter away from her mother and two brothers in her El Salvador homeland.

She worried she would feel lonely in a place she feared might be cold both physically and spiritually.

But Aguilar said she has been pleasantly surprised by the friendly reception in Central Islip, and that the St. John of God Roman Catholic Church has been a place where she has found comfort and support as Easter approached.

"I thought the church would be colder, but I feel the warmth of the people and the acceptance," Aguilar, 29, said in Spanish. "I feel a little sad because I am not with my family. [But] I feel good for the short amount of time that I have here."

Across Long Island, hundreds of thousands of Christians will mark the holiest day of the religious year -- the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

It is a story many immigrants, along with native-born American Christians, find inspiring some 2,000 years later, said Karyn Carlo, interim pastor of the Church in the Garden, an American Baptist church in Garden City.

"Even though the story is an ancient story, hope is new every year," she said. The message of Easter is that "death is not the final word. Violence is not the final word. Hate is not the final word. Oppression is not the final word. Love is the final word."

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Message's impactThe Rev. Thomas Goodhue, executive director of the Long Island Council of Churches, said the Easter story was astonishing to many in the earliest years of Christianity and continues to have a profound impact.

"It was really shocking to people that somebody the Roman Empire executed would turn out to be raised somehow from the dead," he said. "God takes the sides of people who are really downtrodden and oppressed and somehow raises them up higher than the powers that be. That's still a shocking message."

The story can hold a special resonance for newly arrived immigrants from impoverished countries, in part because Jesus too was something of a stranger in his own land, Carlo said.

"Jesus' family were actually exiles in their own land as Jews who lived under the oppression of the Roman Empire. They knew the experience of being strangers. In a very real sense, God is an immigrant," she said.

Goodhue said Jesus was a poor carpenter "from an occupied country that the Romans ruled with an iron hand." Against that milieu, "It was a very radical thing that God was taking" the side of the oppressed, he said.

Carlo said she plans to translate that message into modern terms when she preaches today about the "stones" in people's lives that are obstacles, such as the stone that was placed in front of Jesus' tomb.

"We have so many stones in our lives -- unemployment, hunger, poverty, relationships that don't work, or physical illness," she said. "The hope of Easter tells us that God goes ahead of us and rolls away the stones of our lives."

Exploring traditionsAguilar, a journalist in her homeland, said she moved to the United States to join her husband, a fellow Salvadoran. They married in April 2011 and Aguilar has been waiting since then for her immigration papers to be processed.

When she went to St. John of God Church on Good Friday for a re-enactment of the Stations of the Cross, she especially felt the absence of her family.

To ease the pain, she sent her mother text messages and photos while walking the streets and following "Jesus" and his Roman captors.

She said she is still getting used to some Easter traditions in the United States that don't exist in El Salvador. One of the more mystifying ones is Easter egg hunts. She will attend one Sunday, getting an introduction to the children's ritual.

Mainly, though, she said she'll reflect on the meaning of Easter and "all of the things Jesus did for us. Jesus died for us."

Holy Week, she said, "is a time of reflection, a time of reconciliation" and seeking forgiveness for sins committed. But Easter Sunday will be "celebrated with happiness and jubilation that Jesus has risen from the dead and is together with God the Father."