Patrick Comerford
In our pilgrimage and journey in Lent we have arrived at the end of Lent. Today is Easter Eve, and our sorrows turn to joy later this evening, as day turns to night, and Easter Eve turns to the first Easter celebrations of the Resurrection.
Every evening in Holy Week, there have been special services in the churches in the Rathkeale and Kilnaughtin Group of Parishes. Later this evening, I am presiding at the first Eucharist of Easter and preaching in Castletown Church, Pallaskenry, Co Limerick, at 8 p.m.
The Lent 2017 edition of the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) follows the theme of the USPG Lent study course, ‘Living an Authentic Life.’
Throughout Lent, I have been using this Prayer Diary for my prayers and reflections each morning, inviting you to join me in these prayers and reflections, for just a few moments each morning.
In the articles and prayers in the prayer diary, USPG invites us to investigate what it means to be a disciple of Christ. The Lent study course, ‘Living an Authentic Life’ (available online or to order at www.uspg.org.uk/lent), explores the idea that discipleship and authenticity are connected.
This week, from Palm Sunday (9 April) until today, Holy Saturday (15 April), the USPG Lent Prayer Diary has been following the narrative of Holy Week. The topic was introduced on Sunday in an article in the Prayer Diary by Paulo Ueti, a bible scholar and theologian in the Anglican Church of Brazil.
In his article, he recalled how the fourth-century Church Father, Evagrius Ponticus, says we can only encounter God if we are prepared to encounter ourselves in truth. When we can acknowledge and accept our own darkness, then we are able to accept others.
Easter Eve or Holy Saturday:
Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how. Pray for those who watch, wait and weep, that endurance might lead to the resurrection of hope.
The Collect of the Day:
Grant, Lord,
that we who are baptized into the death
of your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ
may continually put to death our evil desires
and be buried with him;
and that through the grave and gate of death
we may pass to our joyful resurrection;
through his merits, who died and was buried
and rose again for us,
your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Series concluded.
Yesterday’s reflection.
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