Excluding no one this Easter
Two new publications draw readers toward an inclusive Church this Easter. A booklet on Holy Week leaves no one out of the experience of the Triduum and another booklet on loneliness reminds us that we are never alone.
In Celebrating Holy Week », Fr Vincent Sherlock, Parish Priest of Kilmovee in County Mayo, reflects on his own experience of the Easter Triduum and offers a detailed account of the significance and meaning of each day. He makes church and vestments speak, lingers on fonts that go empty and are then full again and turns the absence of song into a lyric of reflection.
Urging us always to notice what is going on around us during this high point of the Christian year, the author leaves no one out of the experience of the Triduum. Fr Sherlock reminds us that, like the man with the pitcher of water who unknowingly guided the disciples to the place of the Last Supper, we are all a part of Easter too.
In I Am With You Always: Living with Loneliness », Sr Siobhán O’Keeffe, currently working in community-based palliative care in Liverpool, reminds us that we are never alone. Our relationship with God is a tether that holds to us through periods of loneliness in our lives and which links us to millions of other people – whether new mother, bullied child, conflicted soldier or overworked surgeon – whose experience and struggle with loneliness is similar.
I Am With You Always includes a guide to loneliness in Scripture and a series of reflections on how loneliness is experienced across contemporary society where, for example, people are spending much of their social life immersed in the noise and distraction of social media. It offers a practical application of Scripture to real life challenges and speaks to people across all strata of society.