CHURCH OF IRELAND EPISCOPAL CHRISTMAS MESSAGE:

THE RIGHT REVED MICHAEL BURROWS

2008 Easter message: 

Although many 'purists' who organise church worship felt that it was inappropriate to celebrate St Patrick's Day in Holy Week and therefore ordered its removal to the previous Saturday, I find the unusual occurrence of our national day in Holy Week something of a source of inspiration. Given that March 17th will not fall again in Holy Week until 2160, I have felt determined to make the best of this year's situation.
By having the 'church' St Patrick's Day and the 'secular' Paddy's Day on separate dates the church has given an impression of wanting to put the sacred and the secular in entirely separate compartments. Moreover, I rather felt that it might be possible to encourage those who came to church on Monday March 17 to celebrate Patrick to realise that they were also being drawn into a journey to and beyond the cross, a journey with which they might then have been tempted (strange word but suitable) to stick.
Frankly many church experts, bishops included, have failed this particular year to help Christians reclaim St Patrick's Day as essentially a church festival. We have failed to use the unique possibilities of this year to show that the central truths of the faith Patrick brought to Ireland - the life, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus - transcend any celebration of the Saint's life and require us to engage with the cross.
Instead of exiling Patrick anew and this time from Holy Week, perhaps we should recall that words of his own CONFESSION echo those of Jesus in Gethsemane and sum up the continuing challenge of the Lord's passion for each of us. 'Look into my heart and mind; I am ready and indeed greatly desire it that he should give me his cup to drink, as he gave it to others who loved him'. To think we can celebrate Easter truly without striving somehow to taste of that cup is folly, as Patrick well knew. In that perhaps austere but none the less sincere spirit, may I wish all in these dioceses a blessed Easter, even if the day is in winter time and the earliest since1913!

================ENDS