蜜芽传媒

A reflection and prayer to start the day with Dr Geraldine Smyth OP.

SCRIPT

Some of you may be relishing a spring break. If visiting Cyprus, today you may be invited by local Christian communities, to join in celebrating their patron, St Lazarus. His feast is wedged between the end of the Great Lent and Palm Sunday initiating 鈥淗oly Week鈥� rituals. The feast links the Gospel narrative of the mourning for Lazarus and Jesus raising him from death, with the narrative of Jesus鈥檚 passion and resurrection. Eastern Orthodox and Catholics, believe that Lazarus settled in Cyprus after fleeing persecution sparked by the preaching of Christ鈥檚 resurrection, and was installed as 鈥淏ishop鈥� by St Paul and Barnabas.

And so on this Lazarus Saturday, let there be joy in the Spirit, as the faith is preached and food shared 鈥� including the tiny cakes baked in the form of 鈥淟azarus-three-days-dead鈥� bound in grave cloths, as Jesus raises him to life: all in reminder on the eve of Palm Sunday and coming days of mourning, that sin and death are already swallowed up and all who are bound, called forth like Lazarus out of darkness into freedom and light. Even in face of ongoing human suffering and the wounds of loss, hope in God鈥檚 New Creation is not quenched. So we send blessings today to those Eastern Christians who celebrate their treasured memories in all their human interactions of friendship and love, sorrow, and expectation of hospitality extended to strangers who come knocking.

On this unique Feast, we pray for the healing of our divisions and a growth in communion between the churches of East and West, as we prepare to keep Easter Sunday together on the same calendar day. Amen.