“I suspect that many of us who are church members are even more eager to find a new normal. I am sure many of us have suffered a tragic loss of loved ones and friends. Many of us know people who have lost their jobs or are in danger of losing their homes. Thankfully, growing numbers of us are getting vaccinated and looking forward to moving from isolation to having people over again.”
She thinks back to Easter in the home country. Were they still conducting open air Easter sunrise services? Mid-April will probably be really hot. She checks the weather for Hyderabad on her smartphone. It is thirty-eight degrees Celsius there, at six-fifteen in the evening. She is glad she is here in B.C. If only they could see an actual sunrise over the mountains.
“Easter is a gradual awakening. We do not need to fear death, because Christ has conquered death. But how does that work? The things of this world have no hold on us, for we belong to the Good Shepherd whose kingdom is not of this earth. But what does that mean when we really take it on board?”
“May we take the time on this Holy Saturday to reflect deeply on what Holy Week represents, especially Good Friday. In what other ways can we show our submission to Christ, emulate his life, illustrate his teachings, and devotion to God?”
It is not the intent here in these offerings to damn the institutional Church for its complicity in ageism. As we well know, “isms” are pervasive and finds their expression in mandates, protocols, exclusion. We have heard it said, maybe, who it is who loves the details. But this “ism” for my focus leads, I believe, to images of fragile, incompetent, disabled men and women with “white collars around their necks.
How difficult to change a holy habit
even for one holier.
They marked the time so they could tend the grave
While, unknown, this bursting Star of life
was finishing the miracle of its own Sabbath sleep –
Or was it sleep?
That Saturday is a secret kept by heaven —
“Good Friday has never reached into me the same way. I cannot fathom how or why people intentionally choose to perpetrate such inhumane torment on one another. Nor can I bear to watch that level of suffering in any living being, particularly in someone so compassionate and good.”
The Episcopal Church today announced the launch of Churchyville, a new social game allowing anyone, anywhere to create the diocese of their dreams from scratch. Available in Beta in the coming weeks.
‘The Maundy Thursday liturgy moves us from a celebration of servanthood to, as in the conversion scene in John Masefield’s great poem of redemption and repentance, “The Everlasting Mercy.”’
“Guide us to the cross,
to sit in the darkness,
to cry out in pain.
Let us not shield our hearts from the brokenness.
Train our eyes to see in the dark.”