Dear Friends

How wonderful it was to celebrate Easter together at St Nick’s on Sunday. It was good to see the church so full at 10.30 and to enjoy such wonderful singing from the choir. How fortunate we were to be able to worship together without fear. But how shocking it was to learn of the Easter Day massacres in Sri Lanka. Gerald and I had a wonderful holiday in Sri Lanka in January this year and it was particularly sad for us to learn of this devastation in places we had visited so recently. How shocking that Christians should have been attacked on the day they were celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  The country’s economy is also very dependent on tourism and so many of their people need our continuing financial support just to maintain their very modest everyday lives.

These events were a timely reminder that many Christians are being persecuted worldwide. The Times newspaper leader column on Monday reminded us that ‘Christians are imprisoned in North Korea, are driven underground by the Chinese authorities, and are victims of blasphemy laws in Pakistan. In India they are attacked by ultra-nationalists. In 73 countries they face peril’.

The Bishop of Leeds reminds us that ‘The Christian faith must not be reduced to merely a private security system – a sort of safe spirituality that tries to keep me going and fulfilled while the world around me can go to hell. We live in times when the need to challenge corrupt-but-dominant world views has never been greater in our lifetime’.  There is much food for thought here.    

On a lighter note, the best Easter joke I have seen to date is that ‘Surrexit means Surrexit’.  

With every blessing

Mother Eileen