Easter Message 2025

by The Reverend Dr. Roman D. Roldan on April 16, 2025

TLDR: We have visitors to our website who do not get our mailings. It is for this reason that I have decided to post my 2025 Easter Letter as a blog for this week. Please look after the letter for a trifold of our Capital Campaign.

To say, “Alleluia, Christ is Risen!” is to say that God has remembered his people and set them free. God is not an absentee landlord who is uncaring and disconnected from the chosen people. Rather, God is among us, eternally present in the risen Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit. To say that God is for us in Christ is to say that wherever God’s children are, there is the kingdom of God. Look around you at this moment. If you are reading this letter while in the kitchen or living room, stop for a second and look around. This kitchen and living room are God’s kingdom. God is present here because the Kingdom is any place and any time where God’s power is acknowledged as supreme and where humans seek to live in accordance with God’s will. Your humble home is God’s throne. Your imperfect heart is God’s home. Your broken and sinful life is exactly where God choses to dwell and where love is manifested in a powerful way. God is not ashamed to call you a beloved child, the object of divine love, the very person for whom Christ died on a cross, the one the Spirit choses to walk alongside for as long as you have breath in you.

Easter is a reminder that God is for us and on our side. And the great beauty of this gift of love is that it has been given to us not because we have done anything to deserve it, but because we are God’s children, created in the Divine image, redeemed by the Christ, and sanctified by the Spirit. God holds us on the palm of the Trinity’s hand, and we know that God holds all things in perfect harmony and love. So, whatever may be going on in your life today, please know that God’s overwhelming and extraordinary love is with you this very moment. God is with you today, not because there is no other place to be, but because there is no other place God would rather be.

You are receiving a little tri-fold brochure with this letter. This is a brief summary of what we are trying to accomplish in our campaign. We want to make Saint Dunstan’s the most loving place in town, which means we have to become the most hospitable place in town. As your read this little trifold, please pray to God to see how you can join us in this effort. But please remember that our love for you is not dependent on your ability to give. Sacrificial giving as a decision of the heart between you and God.

May our Lord continue to bless you. Alleluia, Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia! Blessings to all,

Fr. Roman+

P/S Below you will find a trifold for our Capital Campaign. Please call us if you have any questions about this message.

View Trifold Here

About the Author

The Reverend Dr. Roman D. Roldan

The Rev. Dr. Roman D. Roldan is originally from Colombia, South America, where he lived until he migrated to the United States for College in Southwest Miami in the late 1980s. He attended the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium for graduate school in theology, followed by a master’s degree in social work at Rutgers University in New Jersey in the early 1990s. From 1995 to 2005, he worked as a bilingual psychotherapist, administrator, and Chief Deputy Officer for a national behavioral healthcare company in Florida. He became an Episcopalian in the year 2000 at Grace Episcopal Church, Ocala, Florida. In 2005, he attended Trinity School for Ministry, graduating in 2007 with his master’s degree in divinity and in 2016 with his doctorate in divinity with a concentration in preaching.

Fr. Roldan has been an Associate Dean at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Davenport, Iowa, the Rector of Grace Church of West Feliciana Parish in Saint Francisville, Louisiana, for eleven years, and the Rector of Saint Dunstan’s Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas, for nearly five years. From 2017 to 2020, Fr. Roldan served as a seminary professor at Trinity School for Ministry’s Spanish online program. He also served from 2015-2019 as the Episcopal Chaplain at Louisiana State Penitentiary, commonly known as “Angola Prison.” He was the Dean of the Baton Rouge Deanery in the Dioceses of Louisiana from 2016-2020. From 2010 to 2020, Fr. Roldan served as a short-term missionary in the Episcopal Diocese of Honduras and built the Episcopal Church in El Carmen, San Nicolas. He has served on the Board of Trustees of the Seminary of the Southwest since 2021. He has been a chaplain to 3 Cursillo and two Happening teams since his ordination. He is passionate about the supervision of curates and raising vocations to the diaconate and the priesthood.

Fr. Roldan has been married to Chris Anna Roldan for 31 years and has four children ages 30, 27, 22, and 20. He is an avid reader, traveler, and amateur writer. He is the author of A Blind Man and his Monkey and is currently working on his second novel, The Ghost and his Baby.

Email: frroman@saintdunstans.org

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