Tag Archives: Easter

The springtime of Lent

 

The word “Lent” comes from the Anglo-Saxon word “Lencten”, meaning springtime. If we live Lent well, we have a true springtime in our spiritual life. In this meditation, we situate our Lenten discipline in the context of three events in Our Lord’s life, each of which teaches us something about Lent:

  • His 40 days of prayer and fasting in the desert, after which he rejected the temptations of the devil. If we live our Lenten life of prayer, fasting and charity well, we will be stronger in resisting temptations.
  • His passion and death, borne out of love for us. They invite us to be generous in our Lenten penances out of love for him.
  • His ascension into heaven, where he goes to prepare a room in the Father’s house for us. Our Lenten discipline will help to make up for our sins and speed us along the way to heaven.

Easter with Pope Francis

Resurrection icon

For Easter Sunday 2005, Pope Francis wrote a beautiful homily to be read in the morning Mass in St Peter’s Square by the celebrant, Cardinal Angelo Comastri. Less than 24 hours later, God called Pope Francis to eternal life with him. In this meditation, we use the text of that homily to consider how:

  • Mary Magdalene, and the apostles Peter and John, all ran in their eagerness to find Jesus
  • We too should be eager to find Jesus, who waits for us in our prayer, in the Scriptures, in Mass, in our workplace, in our family…
  • We should welcome Jesus into our heart so that we, in turn, can share him with others
  • Jesus’ resurrection from the dead fills our life with the hope that we too can overcome the difficulties and crosses that weigh us down
  • The ultimate object of our hope is eternal life with God in heaven

Lessons from the Passion

Jesus teaches us so much in  his suffering and death on the Cross. In this meditation we use the events from his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, through his death on Mount Calvary, to his Resurrection on Easter Sunday to consider some of these lessons:

      • Our weakness, like that of Peter, in denying Christ through sin
      • The importance of prayer to avoid falling in temptation
      • The value of our penances, when we consider Christ’s scourging and crowning with thorns
      • Christ’s fortitude in rising again after his three falls
      • His love in suffering on the Cross when they were tempting him to come down
      • Christ’s gift to us of his Mother to be our own
      • Christ’s Resurrection, which follows his suffering and our own

The Journey to Easter

A depiction of the risen Christ

Lent is an annual opportunity to accompany Jesus in his forty days of prayer and fasting in the desert and in his suffering and death on Mount Calvary to his resurrection on Easter Sunday. In this meditation we use texts of Scripture and of Pope Francis’ Message for Lent 2025 to consider how:

  • Lent symbolises our own journey through life to our death and resurrection to eternal life.
  • It is a journey filled with hope
  • If we live it well, we will have a true springtime, a new blossoming of our spiritual life
  • As Jesus was generous in suffering and dying out of love for us, we should show our love for him by being generous in the way we live Lent
  • We can choose areas of struggle from the the three traditional aspects of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, or charity

Hope in the Resurrection

Th resurection of our lord Jesus Christ the principal message of Easter.

When the women went at dawn to anoint the body of Christ on Easter Sunday, they didn’t know how they would remove the huge stone that closed the tomb. To their surprise, they found the stone already removed. In this meditation we use the homily of Pope Francis in the Easter Vigil in St Peter’s Basilica in 2024 to consider how:

  • There are many stones in our own life which may seem like insurmountable obstacles
  • Over the years these problems, by the grace of God, have been solved
  • The Resurrection of Christ fills us with hope that our present problems will also be solved

The Light of Easter

Christ is risen. Easter.

The resurrection of Christ brings light into a world in darkness. That darkness may be of unbelief, of sin, of lack of hope. In all cases, Christ is the light who can dispel the darkness with the light of his Resurrection. In this meditation we consider how we can respond to this light of  Christ in three ways:

  • Accepting the light
  • Keeping the light alive and making it burn more brightly
  • Sharing the light with others

The spirit of Lent

Face of Christ in the Passion

In Lent we prepare for the celebration of our redemption by Christ’s death and resurrection. In this meditation we consider how:

  • We can accompany Our Lord in his forty days of fasting and prayer in the desert by our own greater effort in prayer, fasting and almsgiving.
  • Lent is a time for conversion, of starting anew in our spiritual struggle.
  • As Christ loved us to the end by dying on the cross for us, we should be generous in our Lenten discipline.
  • When we live Lent well, we have a true springtime, new life and growth, in our spiritual life

Faith and joy in the Resurrection

The Resurrection of Christ on Easter Sunday fills us with faith and joy. In this meditation we consider:

  • The sadness and sorrow of Christ’s disciples after his death on the Cross
  • The various accounts in the Gospels of Christ’s appearances after his Resurrection
  • The faith and joy of the holy women and the apostles when they see Christ risen from the dead
  • We too go through crosses in life and can draw strength from them, knowing that God allows them for our greater good and that we will have a resurrection to eternal life

On the road to Emmaus

In the afternoon of the Resurrection, two discouraged disciples of Jesus left Jerusalem for the nearby town of Emmaus. Christ met them on the way and engaged them in conversation, showing them from the Scriptures how the Messiah was meant to suffer and die. When they reached Emmaus the discipes begged Jesus to stay with them and when they recognised him in the breaking of the bread they returned to Jerusalem. In this meditation we consider how:

  • Christ is always there for us when we are going through hard times.
  • We should beg Jesus to stay with us and we should keep him close always, especially when we are experiencing difficulties.
  • Like the disciples did with Jesus, we should open our hearts to the one who guides us in our spiritual life
  • Our hearts, like those of the disciples, will burn within us when we encounter our Lord in prayer, the Scriptures and the sacraments.
  • Our Lord sends us out, as he did the apostles, to announce to others the good news of his love for mankind.

The joy of the Resurrection

The Gospels relate the joy of the disciples and the holy women when they saw Our Lord after his Resurrection. That joy can be ours too when we discover Our Lord in the ordinary circumstances of our life and we come to love him. In this meditation we use passages from the Scriptures, from Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation “Rejoice and be glad” and from St Josemaria Escriva to discover how to find the joy we all seek. We consider how:

  • Christ wants everyone to be happy
  • We will be happy when we find Christ and come to love him
  • We can be joyful even in the midst of sickness, worries and misfortunes
  • Cheerfulness is attractive and draws others to God