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Good morning.

I guess it’s fair to say that Easter has finally finished. Everyone is now back at work and looking forward to the next Bank Holiday.

Easter is a wonderful and joyful season, what with the chocolate eggs and spring flowers and the churches full of alleluias. Which is fine if your world is equally joyful, but hard if you’re living with grief.

And difficult when we look back to the Second World War, at the horrors that still overshadow us. April saw the liberation of many Concentration Camps – yesterday was the anniversary of Dachau, today it’s Ravensbruch.

In our contemporary world, the situation in Syria seems to get no better, despite all the words and promises. The supply of food and medicines remains problematic. Awful things continue to happen, perpetrated by both sides on the innocent people caught in the middle.

It’s very hard to keep hope alive in the face of such events. It can also be quite a test of faith.

Maybe it might help to remember that the three days of Easter include Good Friday. Resurrection doesn’t erase Crucifixion, joy doesn’t deny pain.

Lord God,

give us faith to carry on praying and hoping.

Hear us as we continue to pray for all those working for peace and justice – in the UN Security Council and in governments across the world. May they be given the strength and the faith to carry on when success seems so elusive and hatred and violence so powerful.

You raised your Son to show us the triumph of your love, but only after he had been so brutally and unjustly killed, and so we pray, and will continue to pray, in his name.

Amen