“There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.
Home is where one starts from.”
(T. S. Eliot – “East Coker,” from The Four Quartets V)

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We have come to the end of Lent and Holy Week, the second consecutive year without any liturgical celebrations. Regardless of the sense of loss and disappointment, Easter Sunday arrives with the message “He is risen!”

The journey to Easter is always one frought with difficulties, doubts, and misunderstandings. It was like that for those first disciples; with the events of Good Friday it seemed that all had ended in disaster. But it hadn’t!

As we continue to live our Covid lockdown lives it can sometimes seem that we will never see the end of it. But we carry on, we keep trying. The celebration of Easter reminds us that our difficulties do come to an end. The Risen Christ reminds us that new life can come from death and new beginnings present themselves within life experiences that we thought would never end.

Easter always gives us a sense of hope to embrace new beginnings. Pope Francis in his book ‘Let Us Dream’ says that the basic rule of a crises is that we don’t come out of it the same. If we get through it, and we will, we come out better or worse, but never the same. Our conditions may “seem unpropitious” but the Risen Lord is with us. See the signs of hope around you; springtime, longer days, nature bursting forth, the sound of birdsong … and even our Covid vaccines! 

I wish all of you a very Happy Easter and look forward to our coming together again soon to celebrate our New Life in Christ!

Blessings,

Fr. Richard Flanagan