God our Father,
as we have celebrated today the mystery of theLord’s resurrection
grant our humble prayer:
free us from all harm
that we may sleep in peace
and rise in joy to sing your praise.
Through Christ ourLord,
Amen
The Lord grant us a quiet night and a perfect end pic.twitter.com/ofDAVJd7z8— Kalina Boulter (@KalinaBoulter) April 14, 2020
Tomb, thou shalt not hold Him longer;
Death is strong, but Life is stronger;
Stronger than the dark, the light;
Stronger than the wrong, the right.
Faith and Hope triumphant say,
Christ will rise on Easter-Day.
While the patient earth lies waking,
Till the morning shall be breaking,
Shuddering ‘neath the burden dread
Of her Master, cold and dead,
Hark! she hears the angels say,
Christ will rise on Easter-Day.
And when sunrise smites the mountains,
Pouring light from heavenly fountains,
Then the earth blooms out to greet
Once again the blessed feet;
And her countless voices say,
Christ has risen on Easter-Day.
Up and down our lives obedient
Walk, dear Christ, with footsteps radiant,
Till those garden lives shall be
Fair with duties done for Thee;
And our thankful spirits say,
Christ arose on Easter-Day.
–Phillips Brooks (1835-1893)
Spring has sprung on campus!
Bringing the beauty to you, virtually 💙 pic.twitter.com/rnqjBSS3VU— Penn State (@penn_state) April 10, 2020
Watch and listen to it all from the original writers of the song.
..the Christmas story is largely nonthreatening to nonbelievers: Jesus in the manger, surrounded by Mary and Joseph and the adoring shepherds, is easy to take. As the Gospels of Matthew and Luke recount, there was no little danger involved for Mary and Joseph. But for the most part, it can be accepted as a charming story. Even nonbelievers might appreciate the birth of a great teacher.
By contrast, the Easter story is both appalling and astonishing: the craven betrayal of Jesus by one of his closest followers, the triple denial by his best friend, the gruesome crucifixion and the brutal end to his earthly life. Then, of course, there is the stunning turnaround three days later.
Easter is not as easy to digest as Christmas. It is harder to tame. Anyone can be born, but not everyone can rise from the dead.
Yet the Easter story, essential as it is for Christian belief, can be a confusing one, even for believers. To begin with, the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ appearances after the Resurrection can seem confounding, even contradictory. They are mysterious in the extreme.
Read it all from the WSJ.
The Resurrection of Christ Bartelome Murillo (1618-1682) #baroque #painting pic.twitter.com/sCNbidVVjr
— Tim Marlowe (@aweirdmisc) April 1, 2018
“The compelling evidence for me is the unanimous testimony of all the apostles and even a former persecutor like St. Paul,” said Brant Pitre, assistant professor of theology at Our Lady of Holy Cross College in New Orleans. “There was no debate in the first century over whether Jesus was resurrected or not.”
Scholars say that the witnesses to Christ’s resurrection are compelling for a variety of reasons.
“People will seldom die even for what they know to be true. Twelve men don’t give up their lives for a lie,” said Ray, who recently returned from France, where he was filming his “Footprints of God” series at the amphitheater in Lyon, the site of a persecution in A.D. 177. “The martyrs of Lyon underwent two days of torture and all they would say is, ‘I am a Christian.’ They knew the resurrection was true and didn’t question it.”
Barber also highlighted the diversity of sources and how they include different details as well as passages that do not paint the disciples in the best light.
“In the Road to Emmaus story, they write that they didn’t recognize him,” said Barber. “Our Biblical accounts are our best evidence.”
Several of the scholars pointed to 1 Corinthians, where Paul states that Christ appeared to 500 people.
“Some want to shy away from the Gospels because they say they were written later,” explained Barber. “If you want to believe that they were written later, then why wouldn’t the Gospels have made use of this piece of evidence from 1 Corinthians?” asked Barber.
Alleluja!!! Jezus żyje!!!
Przekaż dalej!#Wielkanoc2020 pic.twitter.com/SNEXG3C82L— Bp Ignacy Dec (@BpIgnacyDec) April 14, 2020
Have you prayed using the audio version of today's prayer?
Go to https://t.co/Rn4jDVCRSG to learn more. pic.twitter.com/qCsUYXYdgY
— The Church of England (@churchofengland) April 14, 2020
Rise heart; thy Lord is risen. Sing his praise
Without delayes,
Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise
With him mayst rise:
That, as his death calcined thee to dust,
His life may make thee gold, and much more, just.
Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part
With all thy art.
The crosse taught all wood to resound his name,
Who bore the same.
His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key
Is best to celebrate this most high day.
God exists: that is the real message of #Easter. Anyone who even begins to grasp what this means also knows what it means to be redeemed. – Pope Benedict XVI pic.twitter.com/UsFlXg8ven
— Franciscan Friars (@MFVAFriars) April 13, 2020
He has also wrestled with his own fear. Walking the halls of temporary coronavirus wards amid the pumping hiss of mechanical ventilators and shellshocked hospital workers, he said: “I started to think about, maybe I could get this. Maybe it could kill me.” Yet Father Devaney still finds avenues of grace. “What gives me hope is that in the Catholic funeral liturgy, it says, life hasn’t ended, it has changed. So for me the hope is that there is a supernatural reality we can’t see, that there is eternal life, life in eternity. And that death doesn’t have the final word.”
Yet these sacrifices make up the core of the faith. The Gospel of John recounts that after arising from his tomb, Jesus Christ appeared to Mary Magdalene, who had come to tend to his body. He called to her by name, and recognizing her beloved teacher, she rushed to embrace him. “Do not touch me,” he said. How jarring that must have been to hear, and how painful to refrain — impossible, perhaps, save for the belief, held close in her heart, that the time would soon come to touch him again.
In the light of today’s Gospel, which she references at the end, read this compelling @ebruenig report of Dominican friars in Manhattan up-ending their existence in order to minister in the crisis. https://t.co/jdqPpR1yFv
— Austen Ivereigh (@austeni) April 14, 2020
O Lord, who by triumphing over the power of darkness, didst Prepare our place in the New Jerusalem: Grant us, who have this day given thanks for thy resurrection, to praise thee in that city whereof thou art the light; where with the Father and the Holy Spirit thou livest and reignest, world without end.
You may grasp the Spring
But the wind takes it away
The Sun mite Shine
But the wind is cold as Ice
It’s just a picture In Ones mind
The Season’s no One can hold
For they pass right in front of
Ones Eyes ~♡
~rLs~ And This To Shall Pass pic.twitter.com/D1P34CWKcg— Robin Stanfill ✴🕊 (@RobinStanfill2) April 13, 2020
Now if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied.
–1 Corinthians 15:12-19
Resurrection of Christ, 1612.
by Peter Paul Reubens.#christ #resurrectionsunday #christisrisen https://t.co/wUmDWekn4C pic.twitter.com/0tc3ECdu1i— Sudha Blanc 📚🎨🍍 (@sudha_vja) April 1, 2018