Grassroots Liturgist

Time disappears when someone we love is dying.   Day cedes to night without much notice.   Activities we have promised to do we discard instead, like the sweater we doff on a slowly warming afternoon.   Routines we never break cease.   Something else has taken our attention, is sitting in our brain, has bound our legs and lowered our head.   Nothing else is important but this person who gave meaning to our life and whose threatened passing wicks away the confidence that hitherto steadied our days.   Yet no death completely surprises, and each one bestows a deeper understanding of the meaning of life. Holy Week invites the entire Church into the emotional experience of loss, fear, and redemption.   We remember the One who died for us.   We accompany his waning days, attentive to his final words and actions, discovering anew our love for one who is lost – and the joy of one who returns. The risen Christ abides in the hearts of believers born gen...

For some of you reading this reflection, especially if you live in and around the tropics, a little context may be needed.   Our parish is in the north of England.   In winters we have very short daylight hours – sunrise ~8:20am and sunset around 3:50pm.   Conversely, our summer daylight ours are long – sunrise ~4:38am and sunset ~9:40pm.   So the start of our Easter Vigil can vary greatly depending on how late or early Easter falls.   Some of you will have noticed that the Easter Vigil this year starts a little later.   Why is this? Easter is a moveable feast.   If you want the technical bit, it occurs on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox. Yes, I also had to read that twice!! That by itself, however, does not tell us why our Easter Vigil starts a little later. The Church teaches very strongly that it should be held ONLY during the hours of darkness: “ The entire celebration of the Easter Vigil takes plac...

  “ But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel .” (Lk 24:21) These are the words of the two disciples making their way from Jerusalem to Emmaus.   Their hearts were bereft and their minds clouded in confusion because of what had happened over the last few days. Let’s try to understand and enter their desolation. Jesus had been preaching and teaching for maybe three years.   But in that time, a great multitude had become his followers – his disciples.   They left their homes, the security of all they knew, to follow him – to sit at his feet and listen to his words. Ask yourself whether there is there anyone that you would do that for? And why it was that they did?   We get an idea from the Gospels… “ And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes .” (Mt 7:28-29 & Mk 1:22) It was no earthly authority that Jesus had – that’s...