Easter 2005

 

Dear Friends,

It is hard to believe that Holy Week begins this Sunday. Easter is earlier this year than it has been for a long time. The snow is still falling and the lengthening of days, which is what Lent means, has yet to reach the point when the spirit begins to lift. Lent for me has been particularly difficult this year with a heavier pastoral load than I have carried for a long time. I usually have about twenty to thirty serious pastoral situations a year. In the last five weeks I have had twelve. It seems as if I am just trying to get through one day at a time. It has been surviving instead of thriving. St Francis de Sales commented that sometimes you do not have to do Lent because Lent happens to you. That has certainly been my experience this year.

The community in general also seems to be struggling. Many of the members of the congregation are tired, overburdened, irritable and generally fed up with winter. Many of us are ill or are recovering from the flu or colds. At the Clergy Lenten retreat I found that this is also true of other congregations and many of my colleagues. It has not helped that it will not stop snowing. The snowdrifts are getting ridiculous and the idea of spring being around the corner is hard to conceive.

There are always positive sides to such times if one wills the soul towards growth. When one finds oneself burdened or depressed it reminds us of how other people feel. When we are joyful it is often difficult to remember what it is like to feel defeated. This can lead us to be callous towards others who are going through trials. Going down into the depth reminds us of the pain which we are all called to elevate. When we do not experience it ourselves we tend to not deal compassionately with those who live under the cross. 

The Passion of Christ is an exercise in identifying with the pain of our fallen world. We meditate upon the betrayal, abandonment, the agony, pain and death of Jesus of Nazareth. By doing this we identify with all who suffer and also with our own hidden pain that we carry. A recognition of our own weakness and pain and fear is the necessary prerequisite for the Resurrection. I have said for years that there is no Easter without Good Friday. I have often wanted to only celebrate Easter with those who have attended Good Friday. I can not do this of course because few would understand the spiritual point I would be trying to make. The point would be to emphasize that in our world of escapism and avoidance of pain and death we close our hearts to the possibility of healing and new life. If you do not know that you are in need of love, and forgiveness, mercy and redemption then what need do you have for Easter? The only way to experience the new life of Christ in the Resurrection is to die to the old life. There is no way to get to Easter without going through the Passion. One makes meaning of the other. To attend the true spiritual Easter one must endure the true spiritual Passion.

As strange as it seems in the midst of shadowy, cold, snowy days Easter is right around the corner. Spring, the birth of new life, is almost with us. It is harder to see the reality of this when Easter comes so soon in the Church year. Every day is a little longer, and it is beginning to warm. So let us hang in there and wait with hope for new life to break forth and the winter be banished for another year.

 

Now the Green Blade rises from the buried grain,

Wheat that in the dark earth many days has lain;

Loves lives again, that with the dead has been;

Love is come again like wheat arising green.

 

When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain,

Your touch can call us back to life again,

Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been;

Love is come again like wheat arising green.

 

Yours in Christ,

Edward OGS

 

Holy Week

Holy Week begins on Palm Sunday and continues with services at 12pm on Holy Monday, Holy Tuesday and Holy Wednesday. On Wednesday evening at 7pm is the service of Tenebrae, a service of shadows and readings in anticipation of the three great days that follow. On Maundy Thursday there will be the Chrism Mass at the Cathedral at 12pm. We will celebrate the institution of the Holy Eucharist, the washing of feet, the stripping of the altars and the vigil in the garden starting at 7pm the same night. The ecumenical walk on Good Friday begins at the church at 9am. Our own liturgy for Good Friday is at 2pm. In the evening at 7pm there will be a short service commemorating the Harrowing of Hell. The Easter Vigil, the most solemn and important service in the church’s year, begins at 10pm on Saturday evening. The Easter morning Eucharist is at the normal time of 10:30.