Dear All,
In anticipation, a very happy Easter to you all. I hope our efforts to live Lent fully will mean we find immense joy over the weekend. The darkness of the Ukraine situation has intensified these weeks for us all. We must pray that Ukrainians – wherever they now are – will experience something of the Resurrection.
The blessing this week is Marty Haugen’s ‘Done Nobis Pacem’ & we pray it for all vulnerable people in Eastern Europe.
We won’t send you a lot today, just one, ‘The Killing’ that picks up the Good Friday theme & a couple of others to help us move forward into Easter. We hope there is something here you will find worth reflecting on.
See below for the zoom link for Holy Saturday & details of our ‘live’ Reflection to which maybe some of you will come.
Enjoy the weekend & the days that follow.
With our love
Holy Saturday 16.4.22: Reflection: A Forgotten Day?
10am (about 25/30 mins)
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85148484877?pwd=RVZpMDZuNEVvSmpVSmF4TXJMaDFkQT09
Meeting ID: 851 4848 4877
Passcode: 042996
ALSO: LIVE in Blessed Sacrament Church on Holy Saturday 16.4.22. at 11.30am – A Reflection for Holy Saturday.
Evening Prayer
There will be Evening Prayer tonight at 5.30 (zoom) link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83365056876?pwd=OXNOTVBkRktZeE44ZWNIdWtTY0UzQT09
Meeting ID: 833 6505 6876
Passcode: 508634
After that there will be no Evening Prayer until Sunday 24th – 5.30 Gospel Reflection followed by Evening Prayer.
The Killing
Edwin Muir
That was the day they killed the Son of God
On a squat hill-top by Jerusalem.
Zion was bare, her children from their maze
Sucked by the dream of curiosity
Clean through the gates. The very halt and blind
Had somehow got themselves up to the hill.
After the ceremonial preparation,
The scourging, nailing, nailing against the wood,
Erection of the main-trees with their burden,
While from the hill rose an orchestral wailing,
They were there at last, high up in the soft spring day.
We watched the writhings, heard the moanings, saw
The three heads turning on their separate axles
Like broken wheels left spinning. Round his head
Was loosely bound a crown of plaited thorn
That hurt at random, stinging temple and brow
As the pain swung into its envious circle.
In front the wreath was gathered in a knot
That as he gazed looked like the last stump left
Of a death-wounded deer’s great antlers. Some
Who came to stare grew silent as they looked,
Indignant or sorry. But the hardened old
And the hard-hearted young, although at odds
From the first morning, cursed him with one curse,
Having prayed for a Rabbi or an armed Messiah
And found the Son of God. What use to them
Was a God or a Son of God? Of what avail
For purposes such as theirs? Beside the cross-foot,
Alone, four women stood and did not move
All day. The sun revolved, the shadows wheeled,
The evening fell. His head lay on his breast,
But in his breast they watched his heart move on
By itself alone, accomplishing its journey.
Their taunts grew louder, sharpened by the knowledge
That he was walking in the park of death,
Far from their rage. Yet all grew stale at last,
Spite, curiosity, envy, hate itself.
They waited only for death and death was slow
And came so quietly they scarce could mark it.
They were angry then with death and death’s deceit.
I was a stranger, could not read these people
Or this outlandish deity. Did a God
Indeed in dying cross my life that day
By chance, he on his road and I on mine?
Risen Lord, on this blessed morn we are your Easter people, and Alleluia – joy and praise – is the song we sing.
We are your Easter people come to worship, released from tombs of pain and doubt and fear and death
into the freedom of this new day, and its promise of hope fulfilled.
We are your Easter people, emerging into the brightness of faith, blinking, questioning, wondering, hoping…
Come to us, into the garden of our lives, and touch all that is barren,
and wasted and dried with your healing hand, we pray.
Forgive our half-lived lives, our broken promises, and our failed kindness.
Call us by our name, that we might turn from all that limits and burdens us, and re-turn to you.
Lift us up into forgiveness and freedom.
Open the gateways of our hearts and minds, and call us out into Your world
to be embraced by Your unfailing and renewing mercy, today,
in joyful worship, prayer and song.
Awaken Me
Joyce Rupp
Risen One,
come, meet me
in the garden of my life.
Lure me into elation.
Revive my silent hope.
Coax my dormant dreams.
Raise up my neglected gratitude.
Entice my tired enthusiasm.
Give life to my faltering relationships.
Roll back the stone of my indifference.
Unwrap the deadness in my spiritual life.
Impart heartiness in my work.
Risen One,
send me forth as a disciple of your unwavering love,
a messenger
of your unlimited joy.
Resurrected One,
may I become
ever more convinced
that your presence lives on,
and on, and on,
and on.
Awaken me!
Awaken me!