We are an Easter People and Alleluia is our song!

Chances are, you’ve heard this quote before. It finds its way onto church notice boards, appears in social media posts, and echoes in homilies. It sounds ancient, like something St. Augustine might have said. But it was actually St. Pope John Paul II who first spoke it to young Australians in Adelaide back in 1986. And he meant it.

“We do not pretend that life is all beauty. We are aware of darkness and sin, of poverty and pain. But we know Jesus has conquered sin and passed through his own pain to the glory of the Resurrection. And we live in the light of his Paschal Mystery - the mystery of his Death and Resurrection. ‘We are an Easter People and Alleluia is our song!’ We are not looking for a shallow joy but rather a joy that comes from faith, that grows through unselfish love, that respects the ‘fundamental duty of love of neighbour, without which it would be unbecoming to speak of Joy’. We realize that joy is demanding; it demands unselfishness; it demands a readiness to say with Mary: ‘Be it done unto me according to thy word’.”

 - St. John Paul II
Angelus, Adelaide, Australia
Sunday, 30 November 1986

John Paul II didn’t sugarcoat it - life is hard. And joy is not about pretending things are fine. It’s about knowing Christ faced it all and won. The Resurrection changes everything. Sin and death do not get the last word. ‘Alleluia, He is risen’ does.

That’s what makes us Easter people. We carry a hope that holds steady when life gets messy - a hope that calls us to live differently, love deeply, and put others first.

Timothy Keller once captured it well: “True humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less.” That shift changes everything. It pulls us out of ourselves and into the kind of joy that’s not self-made but gifted.

Easter isn’t just about standing at the empty tomb in triumph - it’s about walking into the world transformed by it. Loving the neighbour who is hard to love. Choosing mercy when it costs us something. Trusting that the Resurrection is not just a historical event but happening now in us.

So as we walk through this Easter season, maybe the real question is not ‘what can I get?’ but ‘what can I give?’ What if Alleluia wasn’t just a word we sing but the way we live?

That’s the kind of joy worth chasing. Not shallow. Not easy. But real.

Maybe that’s exactly what the world is waiting for - an Easter people who don’t just sing ‘Alleluia’ but live it, wherever they go.