After the intense drama of Holy Week and Good Friday, the hiatus that is Holy Saturday (despite preparations for next day’s services) and the joyful excitement of Easter and the Resurrection of Jesus, the days that follow can leave one feeling tired, deflated, “coming down to earth with a bump” … much the same as the way we feel after a long planned for and anticipated event like a big party, holiday, visit from distant family, etc.
This year I am both physically exhausted and spiritually uplifted, unexpectedly excited.
The good news of Easter hasn’t changed.
I am the same wife, mother, procrastinator, and everything else I have always been. But this year the Lenten studies and services have left a deeper impression, a stronger challenge… so much good news still to absorb, so many readings and sermons to revisit and ponder.
I think this is in no small part due to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent book for 2023: Failure: What Jesus Said About Sin, Mistakes and Messing Stuff Up by Emma Ineson.
Over weeks of reading, I came to realise that
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failure is inevitable – we are human beings, imperfect and prone to making mistakes of various proportions – but
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it is what we do with failure, how we learn from it, how we forgive ourselves AND OTHERS for it, that matters – and
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in God’s eyes we are never failures, for “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17, NIV) – that includes you.
Mary Cassidy, parishioner at St Paul’s, Wokingham, writing on behalf of Churches Together in Wokingham