Lyrics:

Look to the day when the world seems new again:
Morning so fresh you could touch the sky;
The earth smells sweet and ev’ry flower looks bright,
Shining in a dewy light as you wander by.
Taking the time to enjoy each moment;
Tasting the fruits spread along your way,
Knowing there’s time to spare, Dreams you can dream and share:
Look to the day, look to the day.

Look to the day when the earth is green again:
Promise of spring after winter’s sleep.
The sounds of life returning fill the air,
Music that’s forever there for your heart to keep.
Deep in the earth lay the seed of life renewed,
Quiet and strong till the time of spring:
Life in each bud and shoot, Life in each flower and fruit,
Look to that day when earth shall sing.

Look to the light that will drive out darkness;
Look to the hope that will conquer fear.
God’s strength uphold us till the fight is won,
Till we see our task is done when the day is here.
Look for that day when there shall be no more pain;
Sorrow and sighing shall pass away.
Pray for the day to come, Trust that the day will come,
Look to that day, look to the day.

Lord, we give thanks for the gifts of life and health;
Plant a new seed in our hearts, we pray:
Help us to see, O Lord, How it could be, O Lord;
Look to the day, look to that day, look to the day, look to that day.

From there:

Not darkness but twilight
In which even the best
of minds must make its way
now. And slowly the questions
occur, vague but formidable
for all that. We pass our hands
over their surface like blind
men feeling for the mechanism
that will swing them aside. They
yield, but only to re-form
as new problems; and one
does not even do that
but towers immovable
before us.

Is there no way
of other thought of answering
its challenge? There is an anticipation
of it to the point of
dying. There have been times
when, after long on my knees
in a cold chancel, a stone has rolled
from my mind, and I have looked
in and seen the old questions lie
folded and in a place
by themselves, like the piled
graveclothes of love’s risen body.

Easter in Ethiopia is something else pic.twitter.com/9Hd3Ew0hnw

— James Lucas (@JamesLucasIT) April 4, 2026

Driven by a recent increase, young men in the U.S. have now surpassed young women in saying religion is “very important” in their lives. Gallup’s latest data, from 2024-2025, show 42% of young men saying religion is very important to them, up sharply from 28% in 2022-2023. By contrast, during this period, young women’s attachment to religion has held steady at about 30%.

Although young men had previously tied young women on this key marker of religiosity, young men now lead by a statistically significant margin. The recent increase among young men also contrasts with minimal changes since 2022-2023 among older men and women.

With the recent surge in their attachment to religion, young men have returned to the high point of their expressed religiosity of the past 25 years, roughly tying the 43% found in 2000-2001. By contrast, women of all age groups and older men are at or near their historical lows.

These findings are based on biennial aggregates of Gallup’s religion data from 2000-2001 through 2024-2025, allowing for stable estimates across age and gender groups.

Read it all.

Skeptics claimed that the supposed religious revival among young men wasn’t showing up in the polling. Gallup says otherwise. A shift is here, and it’s massive. https://t.co/ItPM1mWc7h

— Walter Russell Mead (@wrmead) April 16, 2026

BOOK 1. 11. What it is to sin, and to make satisfaction for sin.
Anselm.We must ask how God gets rid of men’s sins, but first what is sin itself means.

Boso. You explain and I will listen.

Anselm. If a man or angel always gave to God what is due to him, he would never sin.

Boso. I cannot deny that.

Anselm. So sin is simply not giving God what we owe.

Boso. What debt do we owe to God?

Anselm. To subject every wish to his will.

Boso. That’s perfectly true.

Anselm. No one who pays this debt commits sin. Everyone who does not pay it does sin. This is the righteousness of the heart, of the will, and it is the sole and complete debt which we owe to God, and which God requires of us. If someone sins, he has to restore what he has taken away, before he can be clear of fault . So then, every one who sins ought to pay back the honor of which he has robbed God. This is the satisfaction which every sinner owes to God.

Boso. This is somewhat alarming, but I cannot make any rational objection to it.

Read it all.

Today is the feast of St Anselm, who died in Canterbury on 21 April 1109, as dawn was breaking on the Wednesday before Easter. An eyewitness recorded his last days, when he hoped to live 'at least until I can settle a question about the origin of the soul' https://t.co/mYxGvNcoK2 pic.twitter.com/VcRASHPSqu

— Eleanor Parker (@ClerkofOxford) April 21, 2026

Almighty God, who didst raise up thy servant Anselm to teach the Church of his day to understand its faith in thine eternal Being, perfect justice, and saving mercy: Provide thy Church in every age with devout and learned scholars and teachers, that we may be able to give a reason for the hope that is in us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Today's the feast of St Anselm, 11th Century Italian Benedictine monk and theologian, and Archbishop of Canterbury 1093-1109. Here he is putting Henry I in his place in glass by Moira Forsyth, 1964 in Norwich Cathedral. pic.twitter.com/RdcVcC9Q5L

— Simon Knott (@SimoninSuffolk) April 21, 2026

Almighty God, you gave your only Son to be for us both a sacrifice for sin and an example of godly living: Give us grace thankfully to receive his inestimable benefits, and daily to follow the blessed steps of his most holy life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Good Morning and a happy Tuesday! pic.twitter.com/xlpdzuxIeP

— Terry (@No1GhostDog) April 21, 2026

On the third new moon after the people of Israel had gone forth out of the land of Egypt, on that day they came into the wilderness of Sinai. And when they set out from Rephidim and came into the wilderness of Sinai, they encamped in the wilderness; and there Israel encamped before the mountain. And Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him out of the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the people of Israel: You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my own possession among all peoples; for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.” So Moses came and called the elders of the people, and set before them all these words which the Lord had commanded him. And all the people answered together and said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.” And Moses reported the words of the people to the Lord. And the Lord said to Moses, “Lo, I am coming to you in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with you, and may also believe you for ever.”

Then Moses told the words of the people to the Lord. And the Lord said to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments, and be ready by the third day; for on the third day the Lord will come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. And you shall set bounds for the people round about, saying, ”Take heed that you do not go up into the mountain or touch the border of it; whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death; no hand shall touch him, but he shall be stoned or shot; whether beast or man, he shall not live.’ When the trumpet sounds a long blast, they shall come up to the mountain.” So Moses went down from the mountain to the people, and consecrated the people; and they washed their garments. And he said to the people, “Be ready by the third day; do not go near a woman.”

On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled.

–Exodus 19:1-16

Sunrise this morning here in Glastonbury. pic.twitter.com/Q6D7rE3zrr

— Michelle Cowbourne (@Glastomichelle) April 21, 2026

The disciples found the truth hard to believe.
There had to be breaking bread, eating fish,
before they, too, even Thomas, were lit with
joyfulness. Not much was said about me.
I said good-bye to the son I carried within me
for nine months, nursed, fed, taught to walk.
On Friday when they took him down from the cross,
I held the son I knew,
recognizing him in my arms,
and never saw him again,
not my body’s child. How could I laugh, weep tears
of joy?…

Read it all.

#easter morning holy cross sullivans island #southcarolina #lowcountrylife #easter2026 #anglican #parishministry The Lord is risen indeed pic.twitter.com/fcloK8g65E

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) April 5, 2026

From there:

It is not a major production at all, and the minor attractions we have created around it—the bunnies and baskets and bonnets, the dyed eggs—have so little to do with what it’s all about that they neither add much nor subtract much. It’s not really even much of a story when you come right down to it, and that is of course the power of it. It doesn’t have the ring of great drama. It has the ring of truth. If the Gospel writers had wanted to tell it in a way to convince the world that Jesus indeed rose from the dead, they would presumably have done it with all the skill and fanfare they could muster. Here there is no skill, no fanfare. They seem to be telling it simply the way it was. The narrative is as fragmented, shadowy, incomplete as life itself. When it comes to just what happened, there can be no certainty. That something unimaginable happened, there can be no doubt.

The symbol of Easter is the empty tomb. You can’t depict or domesticate emptiness. You can’t make it into pageants and string it with lights. It doesn’t move people to give presents to each other or sing old songs. It ebbs and flows all around us, the Eastertide. Even the great choruses of Handel’s Messiah sound a little like a handful of crickets chirping under the moon.

The Pilgrims of Emmaus on the Road (Les pèlerins d'Emmaüs en chemin) #artbots #tissot pic.twitter.com/DTtpDuX1wq

— James Tissot (@artisttissot) October 20, 2025

He rose. A few saw him briefly and talked to him. If it is true, there is nothing left to say. If it is not true, there is nothing left to say. For believers and unbelievers both, life has never been the same again. For some, neither has death. What is left now is the emptiness. There are those who, like Magdalen, will never stop searching it till they find his face.

Lyrics (from Psalm 47)–

O clap your hands together, all ye people; O sing unto God with the voice of melody. For the Lord is high and to be feared; he is the great King of all the earth. He shall subdue the people under us, and the nations under our feet. He shall choose out an heritage for us, even the worship of Jacob, whom he loved.

God is gone up with a merry noise, and the Lord with the sound of the trumpet. O sing praises, sing praises unto our God: O sing praises unto the Lord our King. For God is the King of all the earth: sing ye praises with the understanding. God reigneth over the heathen: God sitteth upon his holy seat. For God, which is highly exalted, doth defend the earth, as it were with a shield.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen

From here:

“The heart of the earth has accepted and received the Son of God; and it is from a womb so consecrated, this womb of the ‘hellish’ depths of human existence, that the saved creature rises up. Not just (not even temporarily) in the Son alone. It is not that he alone descended and so rose again as victor because death could not hold him captive. ‘Even now’ he is not the firstborn among the dead in the sense that he is even now the only human being to have found the complete fulfillment of his whole human reality. . . . the Son of Man ‘cannot’ have risen alone. What, we may ask, is really to be understood by his glorified bodily condition (if we take it seriously, and don’t spiritualize it into another way of talking about his eternal ‘communion with God’) right up to the ‘Last Day’, if meanwhile it should persist all by itself—something which is precisely unthinkable for the bodily condition (though glorified)? So when we find in Mt 27:52 s. that other bodies too, those of saints, rose up with him (indeed even ‘appeared’—as he himself did—to show that the end of the ages has already come upon us), this is merely positive evidence from Scripture for what we would have expected anyway, if definitive salvation has already been unshakably founded, death conquered, and a man, for whom it is never good to be alone, has entered upon the fulfillment of his whole being. Hence to try to set aside this testimony from Matthew as a ‘mythological’ intrusion, or to argue away its eschatological meaning with ingenious evasions—such as that it is merely a matter of a temporary resurrection or even of ‘phantom bodies’—would not be in accord with the authoritative voice of Scripture. It is a fact that by far the greater part of the Fathers and the theologians, right up to the present day, have firmly maintained the eschatological interpretation of the text as the only one possible from the exegetical point of view.”

The Son of Man must be lifted up,
so that everyone who believes in Him
may have eternal life.

John 3:14-15

The Resurrection (1631-1632) by Anthony van Dyck pic.twitter.com/SmggsNLJrJ

— SaintsandScripture (@Saint_of_theDay) April 15, 2026

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His Flesh: ours.
The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that pierced died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.
Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not paper-mache,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

–John Updike (1932-2009)

Look, we beseech thee, O Lord, upon the people of this land who are called after thy holy name, that they may ever walk worthy of their Christian profession.  Grant unto us all that, laying aside our divisions, we may be united in heart and mind to bear the burdens which are laid upon us, and be enabled by patient continuance in well-doing to glorify thy name; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Turn thou to me, and be gracious to me;
for I am lonely and afflicted.
Relieve the troubles of my heart,
and bring me out of my distresses.
Consider my affliction and my trouble,
and forgive all my sins.

–Psalm 25:16-18

Lord Jesus, stay with us, for evening is at hand and the day is past; be our companion in the way, kindle our hearts, and awaken hope, that we may know thee as thou art revealed in Scripture and the breaking of bread. Grant this for the sake of thy love. Amen.

Jethro, the priest of Mid′ian, Moses’ father-in-law, heard of all that God had done for Moses and for Israel his people, how the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt. Now Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, had taken Zippo′rah, Moses’ wife, after he had sent her away, and her two sons, of whom the name of the one was Gershom (for he said, “I have been a sojourner in a foreign land”), and the name of the other, Elie′zer (for he said, “The God of my father was my help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh”). And Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, came with his sons and his wife to Moses in the wilderness where he was encamped at the mountain of God. And when one told Moses, “Lo, your father-in-law Jethro is coming to you with your wife and her two sons with her,” Moses went out to meet his father-in-law, and did obeisance and kissed him; and they asked each other of their welfare, and went into the tent. Then Moses told his father-in-law all that the Lord had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel’s sake, all the hardship that had come upon them in the way, and how the Lord had delivered them. And Jethro rejoiced for all the good which the Lord had done to Israel, in that he had delivered them out of the hand of the Egyptians.

And Jethro said, “Blessed be the Lord, who has delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of Pharaoh. Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods, because he delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians, when they dealt arrogantly with them.” And Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, offered a burnt offering and sacrifices to God; and Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to eat bread with Moses’ father-in-law before God.

–Exodus 18:1-12

Almighty God, who broughtest again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the glorious Prince of Salvation, with everlasting victory over sin and the grave: Grant us power, we beseech thee, to rise with him to newness of life, that we may overcome the world with the victory of faith, and have part at last in the resurrection of the just; through the merits of the same risen Saviour, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end.

Saturday and my camellia keeps on flowering 💞

Scottish Highlands #flowers #mygarden pic.twitter.com/jO8T0T2qqZ

— Cloudymamma (@cloudymamma) April 18, 2026

All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped at Reph′idim; but there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people found fault with Moses, and said, “Give us water to drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you find fault with me? Why do you put the Lord to the proof?” But the people thirsted there for water, and the people murmured against Moses, and said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?” So Moses cried to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” And the Lord said to Moses, “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel; and take in your hand the rod with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, that the people may drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massah and Mer′ibah, because of the faultfinding of the children of Israel, and because they put the Lord to the proof by saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

–Exodus 17:1-7

Down The Track. 12°C and rather breezy. A single jackdaw. pic.twitter.com/dVhlSd4VTU

— Yorkshire Wolds Weather (@WeatherWolds) April 18, 2026

Lyrics:

The Lord’s my Shepherd, I’ll not want
He makes me lie in pastures green
He leads me by the still, still waters
His goodness restores my soul

And I will trust in You alone
And I will trust in You alone
For Your endless mercy follows me
Your goodness will lead me home

He guides my ways in righteousness
And He anoints my head with oil
And my cup, it overflows with joy
I feast on His pure delights

And I will trust in You alone
And I will trust in You alone
For Your endless mercy follows me
Your goodness will lead me home

And though I walk the darkest path
I will not fear the evil one
For You are with me, and Your rod and staff
Are the comfort I need to know

And I will trust in You alone
And I will trust in You alone
For Your endless mercy follows me
Your goodness will lead me home (I will trust)

And I will trust in You alone
And I will trust in You alone
For Your endless mercy follows me
Your goodness will lead me home (for Your endless mercy)

For Your endless mercy follows me
Your goodness will lead me home (for Your endless mercy)
For Your endless mercy follows me
Your goodness will lead me home

Enjoy the whole thing.

O gracious Father, who gave Saint Donnan the grace to serve as a faithful witness and capable leader even unto death, grant us the strength to follow his example of persevering witness, through Christ our Lord. who with you and the Holy Spirit ever liveth and reignith in glory everlasting, Amen.

Apr 17: Feast of Donnán and companions (†617), slain on the Isle of Eigg. The ravaging of Toraighe (Tory Island) and burning of Condairi (Connor, County Antrim) in the same year suggest a sea-borne conflagration afflicting the Hebrides and north coast of Ireland. 📸LJ Cunningham pic.twitter.com/DtjGiY0yoa

— North Ages (@NorthAges) April 17, 2026

O Lord God, who hast revealed in holy Scripture what conquests faith has made both in doing, and in suffering: Grant us no smaller faith than that which overcometh the whole world, that Jesus thy Son is God, very God from the beginning, the First and the Last, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, world without end.

—Daily Prayer, Eric Milner-White and G. W. Briggs, eds. (London: Penguin Books 1959 edition of the 1941 original)

Buongiorno Lago d'Orta Verbano Cusio Ossola Piemonte pic.twitter.com/PmwKjQZ7v5

— Ugo Ramella (@RamellaUgo) April 17, 2026

I bless the LORD who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I keep the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved….Thou dost show me the path of life; in thy presence there is fulness of joy, in thy right hand are pleasures for evermore.

–Psalm 16:7-8;11

On a day when heaven appeared on earth , have a wonderful weekend, friends #ScotlandisNow #StormHour #photography #photooftheday #landscape #OutAndAboutScotland #landscapephotography @VisitScotland @ScotsMagazine #STVSnaps #ThePhotoHour #beautiful pic.twitter.com/nsFN3XSGBp

— Mike Wood (@MikeMikwd) April 17, 2026

Jesus of Nazareth was certainly dead by the Friday evening; Roman soldiers were professional killers and wouldn’t have allowed a not-quite-dead rebel leader to stay that way for long. When the first Christians told the story of what happened next, they were not saying: “I think he’s still with us in a spiritual sense” or “I think he’s gone to heaven”. All these have been suggested by people who have lost their historical and theological nerve.

The historian must explain why Christianity got going in the first place, why it hailed Jesus as Messiah despite His execution (He hadn’t defeated the pagans, or rebuilt the Temple, or brought justice and peace to the world, all of which a Messiah should have done), and why the early Christian movement took the shape that it did. The only explanation that will fit the evidence is the one the early Christians insisted upon – He really had been raised from the dead. His body was not just reanimated. It was transformed, so that it was no longer subject to sickness and death.

Let’s be clear: the stories are not about someone coming back into the present mode of life. They are about someone going on into a new sort of existence, still emphatically bodily, if anything, more so. When St Paul speaks of a “spiritual” resurrection body, he doesn’t mean “non-material”, like a ghost. “Spiritual” is the sort of Greek word that tells you,not what something is made of, but what is animating it. The risen Jesus had a physical body animated by God’s life-giving Spirit. Yes, says St Paul, that same Spirit is at work in us, and will have the same effect – and in the whole world.

Read it all.

Today is Easter Saturday, the end of the first week of Easter. The Supper at Emmaus, by Douglas Strachan, 1934 in King's College Chapel, Aberdeen. In the triumph of Easter it's easy to forget this has been a week of uncertainties, of wonderings, half-recognitions, doubts and… pic.twitter.com/vaRhawAVLN

— Simon Knott (@SimoninSuffolk) April 11, 2026

O gracious God, who gave Saint Magnus the grace to witness unto his death and to pray for those who were his killers, grant us the courage to follow his example of being a faithful disciple to the end, through Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit ever liveth and reignith in glory everlasting, Amen.

Apr 16: Feast of Magnús († c.1116), earl of Orkney. His cousin Hákon Pálsson had him killed in a feud over the division of lands and power in their joint earldom. Orkneyinga saga says Magnús accepted violent death as a sacrifice, praying for his killers. 📸Hew Morrison pic.twitter.com/bQImf8ByHA

— North Ages (@NorthAges) April 16, 2026

We give thee thanks, O heavenly Father, who hast delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of thy Son; grant, we pray thee, that as by his death he has recalled us to life, so by his presence abiding in us he may raise us to joys eternal; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

Morning everyone I hope you are well. It's probably one of the "go-to" shots around Buttermere now, especially when the gorce is in full bloom. Even though it's 5 years since I first shot this composition, I still love it. Have a great day.#LakeDistrict pic.twitter.com/xaFE4CsFEQ

— Rod Hutchinson (@lakesrhino) April 16, 2026

And as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. And the Lord said to Moses, “I have heard the murmurings of the people of Israel; say to them, ‘At twilight you shall eat flesh, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’”

In the evening quails came up and covered the camp; and in the morning dew lay round about the camp. And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as hoarfrost on the ground. When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “It is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat. This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Gather of it, every man of you, as much as he can eat; you shall take an omer apiece, according to the number of the persons whom each of you has in his tent.’” And the people of Israel did so; they gathered, some more, some less. But when they measured it with an omer, he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack; each gathered according to what he could eat. And Moses said to them, “Let no man leave any of it till the morning.” But they did not listen to Moses; some left part of it till the morning, and it bred worms and became foul; and Moses was angry with them. Morning by morning they gathered it, each as much as he could eat; but when the sun grew hot, it melted.

–Exodus 16:10-21

Good morning, Glorious Beings!🤩 Happy Thursday!😊 Time to put on those toothy grins 😁 if you can't see the sunshine ☀️ Be the sunshine ☀️ and have a fab one, folks! 😘#ThursdayVibes pic.twitter.com/mx6hA0zT7P

— Kate 🏄‍♀️🌊🤙〓〓 (@CornwallK8) April 16, 2026

Sam believes that Gandalf has fallen a catastrophic distance and has died. But in the end of the story, with Sam having been asleep for a long while and then beginning to regain consciousness, Gandalf stands before Sam, robed in white, his face glistening in the sunlight, and says:

“Well, Master Samwise, how do you feel?”

But Sam lay back, and stared with open mouth, and for a moment, between bewilderment and great joy, he could not answer. At last he gasped: “Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?”

“A great shadow has departed,” said Gandalf, and then he laughed, and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days without count. It fell upon his ears like the echo of all the joys he had ever known. But he himself burst into tears. Then as a sweet rain will pass down a wind of spring and the sun will shine out the clearer, his tears ceased, and his laughter welled up, and laughing he sprang from bed… “How do I feel?” he cried.” Well, I don’t know how to say it. I feel, I feel” –he waved his arms in the air– “I feel like spring after winter, and sun on the leaves; and like trumpets and harps and all the songs I have ever heard!”

— J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973), The Return of the King

'He is not here, he is risen as he said'

On Easter morning, the three Marys hurry to where Jesus is buried, only to find the tomb empty and an angel guarding it. Glass by Didron of Paris, 1863 at Feltwell St Mary, Norfolk.

Feltwell: https://t.co/BugPZEEoqU pic.twitter.com/xqZUxj90bZ

— Simon Knott (@SimoninSuffolk) April 5, 2026

Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery established the new covenant of reconciliation: Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

In bloom

South Moravia pic.twitter.com/a54YiphBOv

— Martin Rak (@martas_) April 15, 2026

I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already made clean by the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

–John 15:1-11

Sunshine And Showers. 16°C and a brisk Southerly. Hares on the bank. pic.twitter.com/1bZ0PRh8D7

— Yorkshire Wolds Weather (@WeatherWolds) April 15, 2026

If we belong to Christ, because we have become one with him by faith, then we have died with him to sin and risen with him to newness of life.

The merit of his death and the power of his resurrection have both become ours. And one day our bodies will rise too.

We have already been raised with Christ spiritually from the death of sin; we shall be raised from physical death also and clothed with new, glorious bodies like his.

Thus each stage of our salvation is tied to the resurrection of Christ, our justification, sanctification and glorification, that is, our acceptance before God, our growth in holiness, and our acquisition of new bodies on the Last Day.

In the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead we have the proof of our justification, the power of our sanctification, and the pattern of our glorification. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is a vital foundation of the Christian religion. The Christian faith is not only “the faith of Christ crucified,” but “the faith of Christ risen”.

Let me apply this to my readers with some direct questions:

First, are you doubtful about the deity of Jesus? Then do examine the evidence for the resurrection. God raised Jesus from the dead in order to demonstrate the deity of his Person. He was powerfully designated God’s Son by the resurrection.

Are you doubtful about your own salvation? Whether you are accepted before God and your sins forgiven? Then do look at the empty tomb! God raised Jesus from the dead to confirm the efficacy of his sacrifice.

Are you doubtful about the possibility of victory? Then do remember that God raised Jesus from the dead in order to complete your salvation! You need to be convinced that Jesus is alive. If you belong to him, you have risen with him, and in the power of the resurrection you and I can be “more than conquerors”.

Read it all.

Christ is Risen!
Many years to all Orthodox on the Feast of the Holy Resurrection! pic.twitter.com/CrUNJn2yum

— Kyra M. (@_sloveni_) April 12, 2026