‘Faith’ is men inventing gods in their own image
one chosen sugary joy from the Lenten hoard of accumulated goodies.
We ate Easter breakfast at 2am in the morning. On Easter Sunday afternoon, children repaired to one of several Easter Huts under construction in the marshy ‘humps’ behind the estate, and finished the job, including gathering wood for the fire.
On Easter Monday, we boiled eggs hard as hickory, experimenting with the colour various bits of twigs and greenery might add to the shells, before competing in rolling and throwing said eggs until the shells were in smithereens, and then we ate the smoky, coloured eggs, and an odd bit of eggshell!
Modern chocolate eggs have their place, but aren’t half the craic the real thing provided in ‘the olden days’.
Perhaps germs, health and safety regulations hadn’t yet been invented.
THE Catholic Easter ceremony is, I believe, similar to that of the Anglican Church, and possibly the Methodists, but might cause a God-fearing Wesleyan or Calvinist to recoil in horror.
It was my absolute favourite of all Church shenanigans.
It started at midnight in the chapel, in darkness. We held our Easter candles to the ready.
There was a sense of theatre and excitement about the pending ritual.
From the back of the church, the procession of priest and attendants would come in solemn chant of ‘Lumeni Christi’ as the candle at the end of each pew was lit from the Paschal candle carried by the priest.
Each candle along each pew was lit, one from the other, until the church was bathed in candlelight, and the main actors reached the front of the church.
Next came the blessings of the various waters and oils that would be used throughout the year for baptisms, confirmation and anointing the dead.
Finally, the dressing of the celebrant in holy ‘garments’ fit for celebrating the ‘Resurrection of the Son of God’.
Throughout, the heady aroma of burning incense accompanied a steady stream of rhythmic invocation and responses from the congregation, seeking blessing, forgiveness, protection and intercession from harm, evil and temptation of all descriptions.
The invocation included prayers for “the souls of pagans, heathens and infidels”, despite the evidence of our participation that the ‘pagan’ wasn’t far down in any of us.
We renewed our faith and hope in the promise that by His death, naked and suffering shame on the cross, God proved He loved us.
He had risen from the dead, and would look after us. We belonged with Him and to Him, and through Him to each other.
I no longer retain what religions describe as ‘faith’ – a persistent belief in something despite the absence of any supporting evidence.
The rational evidence points to men inventing gods in their own image, likeness and interest to increase their own power, wealth and influence at the expense of others.
Despite all we see and read and know about the inequality, injustice and inhumanity of the world we live in, the evidence points to our shared capacity to make the whole world a better place for all humanity.
Easter is a good time for all Christians, ex-christians and non-christians alike to renew a commitment to humanity.
Protecting the human beings in Palestine is not a bad place to start.
EDITOR’S NOTE:
AS BERNADETTE has pointed out, the clocks go forward this weekend.
The clocks change by one hour at 1am on the last Sunday in March – which this year falls on Easter Sunday, March 31.