Easter Peace

With the initial ‘novelty’ of lock-down now a truly distant memory I do hope that you are able to make the best of your situations. I have had to reduce my exposure to social media as I was feeling overwhelmed by live stream Masses from dawn ‘til dusk, learning opportunities for a multitude of languages, culinary or crafting skills, videos of kittens/dogs/birds/bears, tik toks, or online regimes for dance/fitness… I felt exhausted!  Switching off from the noise of the virtual world, I find my most precious hour of the day is my morning walk.  The beauty of nature never fails to touch me and being still with God grounds me in a deep and meaningful way as I pray with all of you, your families and our parish communities. I hope you have found the material on the Pastoral Area website useful, especially from the Archdiocese, encouraging focussed stillness during Holy Week.  The reflections can be used at any time and you can discover their richness and connection to the risen Christ whenever you like. You may also want to see all the amazing Palm Sunday decorations in the Family Liturgy Gallery – do send me any of your Easter decoration pictures to share.

My Easter prayer for each of you is to experience the joy in the unity of our living communities: parish, school, family, friendship circles, neighbourhoods together with our response nationally to reach out so generously in this time of need.  “Christ is risen – Christ is risen indeed!” God Bless, Helen