Below you will find resources for Holy Week and Easter

 As a young man I was used to experiencing the pain and sorrow of Good Friday, to which a really long and boring sermon contributed, then jumping to the joy of Easter Sunday without giving much thought to the day in between. 

When Margaret took me to an Easter Vigil for the first time in the spring before we got married my understanding of that day, Holy Saturday, was transformed.

 There was darkness and silence, and a sense of waiting and wondering as we stood outside the large Catholic Church. Then the fire was lit, the light was shared and we walked into the huge dark church, gradually lit by our flickering candles. The liturgy was a masterstroke of suspense. We all knew the end, but….. we still held our breath … ‘This is the Night’ when Jesus lay in his tomb, alone, forsaken, and we felt the pain of it. But ‘this is the night’ when God’s saving power was recalled and prayed for.

 Perhaps today we are all sharing in that Saturday feeling, like the disciples many of us are locked in, alone, frightened, not knowing the end of the story. They were cowering from Roman soldiers seeking to stamp down on possible uprising and on anyone looking or sounding like a Galilean. They were frightened also of the temple leaders defending their power and traditions. We on the other hand are sheltering from a virus that we cannot see but certainly can see its consequences. 

 The bleakness of their situation and the cruel shadow of illness and even death, open us as it would eventually open them, to the possibility of a different way of looking at tomorrow: a way not of flickering, shallow optimism but of strong un-killable hope. 

 For hope is the courage not to be swallowed by despair but, whilst acknowledging the rampant brutality of conflicts and this horrifying pandemic, to trust in the possibility for life and creativity amid and beyond these frightening realities, without ever denying their existence or trivialising their impact. The very realities which banish confidence and legitimise despair also invite a hopeful embrace of love’s living power to prevail in history.

 Then their hope was realised in the transforming power of God’s love as those terrified and confused followers of Jesus became the Pentecost people. Today that hope is already being realised through wonderful stories of caring, openness and creativity. Perhaps our Holy Saturday prayer is that out of this darkness will emerge a new world of mutual responsibility for each other and for our planet.