Easter Monday
Do you, like me, doubt?

“God raised this man to life and all of us are witnesses to that.” (Acts 2:14)

I sat in the Cathedral during Mass and looked at the beautiful display of flowers. This statement from today’s first reading struck me more than the momentous events described in the Gospel.

Are we witnesses too, but only in our own heart? Peter was transformed from a cowardly wreck in a matter of weeks into the confident who could stand up in front of hundreds and say this, but he had seen. Can’t the will be as strong as the eye?

Easter Tuesday
I love these days after Easter and always make a particular point of going to Mass. Today, Mary stands outside the tomb weeping. I love the way that she too does not recognise Jesus. I sympathise with her, as I have spent a lifetime doing the same.

Easter Wednesday is the day that we hear the Gospel of Emmaus. The whole mass is in this reading which must be my favourite. Here the scriptures are read to us and here we recognise The Lord in the breaking of the bread.

I took my little boat out in Portsmouth Harbour. Here everything was rain and wind, so we gave up and went round the Mary Rose exhibition. What a strange and moving evocation of a previous world. One moment five hundred men full of vigour and fight, the next plunged into that same grey patch of Spithead sea that I have so often sailed over.

I am reminded of the small cross on the road rising to the fell above Stonyhurst and its inscription: “Glad in the evening, sad in the morning. Watch out! You neither know the day or the hour.”

Let’s not be morbid but still think upon the surgeon of the Rose. A man of substance. We have his possessions now, but who was he? Is he, I wonder, chuckling at us now?

Easter Thursday
And now when they return to the room where the apostles are, Thomas is not with them. Just as we often are not there.

I went to Oakham Parish Church for the memorial service of my predecessor Lord Kimball. The centre of the town is a perfect mix of school and church. After, we sat by the quiet waters of Rutland Water, dappling sunlight, the lightest of airs, and small beached boats, the remembrance of summers past and reflected came back to us.

Easter Friday
And now we are by the side of the Sea of Galilee. The scene is homely and still convincing.

I was due at the launch of a Euro campaign but I took some time off to go the Eucharist in Lincoln Cathedral. How inspiring to be there listening to see words under the enormous East Window towering above us and way above me the tiny Lincoln Imp having a laugh. Somebody gave me some time ago some pretty hideous Imp cufflinks. I am wearing them now.

Easter Saturday
Now Mark summarises the whole extraordinary week.

We travelled to Rome on a wing and a prayer for the canonisation of the two popes, John XXIII and John Paul II. We had no ticket but Ryanair had a place. In the evening we watched the Polish groups led by their parish priests winding their way through the Piazza della Rotondo in front of the Pantheon. Their red and white flags waving to show them the way.

Divine Mercy Sunday
My daughter managed somehow to grab a mass book. Lucky, because there was a mile and a million Poles between us and the altar. But no matter, at the other end of the bridge over the Tiber leading to Castel Sant’Angelo there was a screen at an angle so we could watch the Mass, sort of. What an experience to be packed on that bridge in the crowd. We saw the dignitaries being whisked to their seats in their limos. Very nice, but they miss something.

HOLY SATURDAY

Sit in the church. In front of you, the Tabernacle is empty. Everything is empty, still. God has left the Earth.

Is God gone? Has He ever been? Is He that which is in my mind? What is my mind? Is it that which God is in?

“In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth. And the Earth was a formless void.” (Genesis 1:1)

EASTER SUNDAY

We attend the service, we listen, but in our heart of hearts, do we see and believe?

“He saw and believed.” (John 20:1-9)

After the great services, the three-hour vigil, the great hymns. “Thine be the glory”, the ringing Exultet, I sat alone in the empty abbey. Now all was deathly still. I looked in my mind’s eye at the empty tomb. I had listened and I believed. He had gone. He is risen.

“Salva festa dies, toto venerabilis aevo, qua Deus infernum vicit et astra tenet.”

Hail, festival day, revered for all time, on which God conquered Hell and holds all the stars in his sway.

EASTER MONDAY

Do you, like me, doubt?

“God raised this man to life and all of us are witnesses to that.” (Acts 2:14)

I sat in the Cathedral during Mass and looked at the beautiful display of flowers. This statement from today’s first reading struck me more than the momentous events described in the Gospel.

Are we witnesses too, but only in our heart? Peter was transformed from a cowardly wreck in a matter of weeks into the confident who could stand up in front of hundreds and say this, but he had seen.

Cannot the will be as strong as the eye?

The reading today is about the cure of the blind man. What I like about it is that faith gradually comes to him. He is actually quite cheeky in his replies. Faith I thinks can be like that. We needn’t take it too seriously and we can acknowledge that it has its ups and downs. One thing one can be sure of: whatever the evidence, the Pharisees in our midst will continue to mock.

On Tuesday the court official travels all the way from Jerusalem to find Jesus in Galilee. Quite a journey and no doubt he was mocked at court for seeking out an obscure provincial faith healer. Courts are still the same today, the preserve of the politically careful. How many today would have the courage or time to seek out the likes of Jesus.

On Tuesday I had lots of meetings to go to so I was very late at Mass. Like the crippled man at the Pool of Bethzatha, I could not get to the heeling waters in time but what a joy to arrive at the raising of the host. Well worth the hot walk down Victoria Street.

Again on Wednesday I had had a long-walk across central London. By the time I arrived at Mass I was tired but the fifth chapter of John gradually spread into the consciousness. “I tell you most solemnly, whoever listens to my words and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life.”

The Gospel on Thursday again from John 5 is even longer and even more soothing: “You have never heard his voice, you have never seen his shape, and his words find no home in you”.

On Friday I was grappling with a problem about what to do, which had vexed me for some time. Several Hail Marys had not done the trick. I tried one last time. I imagined I was with Christ in the garden and the choices that are given to us and I asked to do his will. Almost immediately a firm thought came into my head. “Do not do this.” This seemed to have resolved the problem. I woke refreshed.

Where had this sensible advice come from? From an illusion in my own head or perhaps just possibly from somewhere else? Perhaps it is true.

By Saturday the problem and the choice remained, but so too did the firm advice. I will not ignore something that could come from Christ himself. How difficult it is, though, to do his not our will.

Today’s Gospel asks a pertinent question “do prophets come out of Galilee”.