Author: stjohnstmarkchurchbury

This is part two of our Stations of the Resurrection for Eastertide. These have come to us from the United Benefice of Kirkdale with Harome, Nunnington and Pockley in North Yorkshire. Many thanks again to the Reverend Sue Binks for giving us permission to share this.

I love this story of the road to Emmaus. Scholars don’t seem to know where Emmaus actually was – but that’s not really important. It was far enough to make a good story – and close enough to get back and share it with others…

Here are the May 2020 Bible readings. This month takes us from Easter Season and into Pentecost. There’s plenty of action to read about as the first followers of Christ get to grips with the implications of having a risen Saviour.

Do we find it harder to accept that God can do great things? We can get dragged down and become negative; things will never change; how do we get out of this rut? Perhaps that’s why getting our heads round Easter and Jesus rising from death is difficult and we doubt, if only within ourselves…

In the latter part of the twentieth century a complementary devotion to Stations of the Cross emerged. These were called the Stations of the Resurrection or the Stations of Joy – a Celebration of the Great Fifty Days of Eastertide. As the with the Stations of the Cross we move from station to station, reading an appropriate Bible passage and meditating on it.

We would like Thomas! Today he’d probably be a Church Warden and we’d call him Tom. Only his mother ever called him Thomas. You know where you stand with our Tom. And we shouldn’t be at all surprised at what we see in today’s passage from John. Afterall, Tom is just being a bit more straightforward than all the others.

The basis of Celtic Prayer is that there is no distinction between the sacred and the secular. It’s all interconnected and interwoven. God is in the thick of it, bound up in all aspects of our lives. And every part of the life that we lead could and should be prayed about.

Like churches everywhere, with the buildings not being open at the moment it means that we are unable to physically pray and worship together. We’re doing what we can to worship on-line and support each other remotely. However, it also means that we’re not getting revenue from hall lettings, fund-raising events or from the weekly planned giving envelopes.

John told stories. Stories about people just like you and me. In the closing chapters of his Gospel, we learn about the risen Christ through three people. Mary Magdalene, Thomas and Peter. They had the same worries, doubts and failings as we do. It’s through these three that we understand the implications for us today on Jesus coming back to life. And how we’re each called into action.

Sunday 12th April is Easter Sunday. Below are a handful of craft ideas for children to do at home which illustrate the story found in all 4 Gospels about Jesus rising again after dying on the cross. There’s also a rainbow for colouring in and putting in the window.

Ignatius of Loyola founded the Jesuits and he thought about ways of making prayer an immediate and powerful experience for anyone looking to deepen their relationship with God. A particular feature of the Jesuits was that they were to pray wherever they happened to be. They presuppose that God is present in our world and active in our lives. As Ignatius said, they were to ‘find God in all things’.

It would have been very busy that day. Jerusalem packed with pilgrims coming into the city from all over to celebrate the Passover. Inspired by the memory of Moses the atmosphere would be one of excitement and expectation as the pilgrims came together – many, may be, meeting up with friends they had made in previous years…

Easter is on its way and we have been given access to a very exciting resource on the teaching of Easter called ‘Easter Tales’. Schools, Catholic and Church of England dioceses have begun to circulate it to their networks or are streaming it for virtual church services. It comes with free downloadable teaching resources.

This Sunday 5th April is Palm Sunday. One of our regular viewers asked us to put up some ideas for things children could make at home in the absence of being at Junior Church or Sunday School. So, here are just a handful of ideas which illustrate the story in Matthew 21.

As you would expect, Tearfund is currently assessing how coronavirus is affecting the world’s poorest and most vulnerable communities. We are looking at how we can best support our locally based partners & churches to make a meaningful, sustained response to this pandemic. We would greatly value your prayers as we move forward.