Good Friday afternoon is usually when Janet and I arrange the Easter lilies in church. Each lily stem in memory of someone special who has died; there were 82 last year. The church is quiet - almost resting from the activity of Holy Week and before the joyous celebration of Easter Day. Once again there are no lilies today, but the names of some of those special people we want to commemorate are on the altar. Many of us will be adding to those names in our hearts. This year there are primroses instead of lilies, a humble flower but no less beautiful. Someone said: “Beautiful times become no less so, simply because they have ended.” And so it is, with our loved ones then and now.
The silence of Good Friday is soon replaced with the exuberance of Easter Day. We pray that, this year, the hope of Easter Sunday will be that we emerge from the fear and misery of Covid which has engulfed us all in different degrees. But the central message of Easter is always the same: life continues in some mysterious way; death is defeated; Christ has the victory; God is with us. Always. Alleluia! Sheila
