Easter Monday: Many Rays of Hope

Happy Resurrection Day, friends! May you know new life, peace, and hope today, tomorrow, and forever. Easter Sunday kicks off a week in the liturgical calendar known as the Easter Octave and a seven-week festival called Eastertide or The Great Fifty Days.

The Many Rays of Hope

The Easter season is a time of hope. There still is fear, there still is a painful awareness of sinfulness, but there also is light breaking through. Something new is happening, something that goes beyond the changing moods of our life. We can be joyful or sad, optimistic or pessimistic, tranquil or angry, but the solid stream of God’s presence moves deeper than the small waves of our minds and hearts. Easter brings the awareness that God is present even when his presence is not directly noticed. Easter brings the good news that, although things seem to get worse in the world, the Evil One has already been overcome. Easter allows us to affirm that although God seems very distant and although we remain preoccupied with many little things, our Lord walks with us on the road and keeps explaining the Scriptures to us. Thus there are many rays of hope casting their light on our way through life.

Henri Nouwen

Watch: The Dance of Time 

Read:  Psalm 93, 98; Exodus 12:14-27; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Mark 16:1-8

Pray: Book of Common Prayer, Collect for Easter Monday

Grant, we pray, Almighty God, that we who celebrate with awe the Paschal feast may be found worthy to attain to everlasting joys; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Listen: A new Spotify playlist - Resurrection 2020. Add it to your account by clicking ‘Save to My Library.’

Do: I'm working on a new resource that better fits the shelter-in-place lifestyle we're all living. For now, this should get you started!

In previous years, we've celebrated the Great 50 Days between Easter Sunday and Pentecost Sunday (aka, Eastertide) with a series I've dubbed Practice Resurrection (after the Wendell Berry poem). It's one of my favorite series all year, and I'm excited to start again. I need your photos and captions to make it work. To help prime the pump, I thought you might enjoy the list of ideas I brainstormed for simple ways to practice resurrection.

Choose 1 idea or 50, but whatever you do, do it with gusto! 

Here's how you can share your photo stories with me for the blog:

1. Add something to your day that helps you practice resurrection (one day or fifty days -doesn't matter).

2. Take a picture and write a description in 1-50 words. 

3. Share it with me via email, share on my Facebook page, or tag me on Instagram (you can tag me with @a_sacramental_life or use the #PracticeResurrection2019 hashtag.) 

I look forward to hearing from you! 

Tamara

p.s. You can read here for a brief description of the liturgical season of Eastertide, and see previous Eastertide posts here.