Clergy Notes — Second Sunday of Easter, April 11, 2021
Alleluia, Christ is Risen!
The forty days of Lent have particular disciplines and ways of praying associated with them, for example, fasting, almsgiving, prayer of penitence. A particular Passiontide devotion is the Stations of the Cross, the Via Crucis, which we celebrated on Palm Sunday and Good Friday.
Now we are in the glorious fifty days of Eastertide, with their particular focus on the Resurrection of Jesus, his showing himself to the disciples, his Ascension, and the Coming of Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Through our Baptism we are invited to live here and now in the light of the Resurrection. In our liturgy, the Gloria in excelsis, Glory be to God on high, is restored, and the joyful Alleluia is added frequently. Yet in the tradition there is no real parallel with the Lenten disciplines mentioned above.
In the later twentieth-century a complementary devotion to the Stations of the Cross emerged, the Stations of the Resurrection, the Via Lucis, the Way of Light. Here we are encouraged to meditate on the resurrection appearances in the Gospels. (As in the Stations of the Cross, visual images of the different scenes may be used, and there may be opportunity to move from station to station.) The resurrection appearances are more than just stories or history, they are a record of personal encounters with our risen Lord: prayerful reflection upon them allows us to enter into such an encounter today.
In your prayer time this week you may find it helpful to consider a different one of the resurrection appearances each day, perhaps using the Ignatian pattern I referred to in Lent, imagining yourself as present in the scene. What might it feel like to have been Mary Magdalen, Peter, John or Thomas; to be walking on that road to Emmaus, or fishing on the Sea of Tiberias? Here are some bible references: Matthew 28.8-15; John 20.11-18; Luke 24.13-35; Luke 24.36b-48; John 21.1-14; Mark 16.9-15.
Easter Blessings,
Fr. Kevin
Download Sunday service booklet here: rev Liturgy at Home Easter 2 Sun April 11 2021