- AMY WELBORN covers Easter worldwide. She’s got moving photographs from Catholic celebrations of the Triduum from around the world … (gkupsidedown.blog)

- ORTHODOX EASTER– Getting your Slav on … (sergesblog.blog)

- N.T. WRIGHT: Jesus the Risen Judge – and Forgiver … (freerep)

- GNOSTICISM and the Resurrection of Christ … (pblosser.blog)

- CROSS-CENTRED? or Resurrection Centered? … (mrlauterbach)

- SAINT BENEDICT of Nursia’s Easter; The Easter ‘Hit’ Parade … (benedictseraphim)

- ALL2COMMON– “Easter: The Never-Ending Surprise” … (all2common)

- VIA ZENIT– Pope Benedict XVI’s Easter Message: ‘A Renewed Witness to the Resurrection of Christ’; readings from the Rome Stations of the Cross at the Colisseum (read the whole thing) … (zenit)

- CHRISTIANS ANGERED by Easter-time promotions for questionable works about Jesus; “Isn’t it simply Easter season, when fresh Gnostic gospels or dubious ossuaries show up like spring daffodils?” … (t19, odoxytoday)

- DAVID WARREN: “…what were we putting up with, as Easter approached? The betting on Judas was, as usual in recent years, fairly heavy. The Lenten season was itself kicked off with The Lost Tomb of Jesus, about which I wrote at the time: a truly miserable attack on the Christian faithful, by filmmakers out to maket their thirty bags of cash. We’ve had the full frontal chocolate Jesus from the art world; and Barack Obama dressed as Jesus in another statue. We’ve had the usual Church of England gay cleric, the Rev. Jeffrey John, announcing that the Resurrection did not happen, and implying that if the Crucifixion did, God must have psychopathic tendencies. We’ve had Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens and a few more “media atheists” take their best seasonal shots” … (davidwarrenonline)

- EASTER MARKED by Arab Christians; Still Illegal in Saudi Arabia … (christianpost.com)

- NOTES: Pascha & Bright Week … (southern-orthodoxy.blog)

- FAR EASTERN EASTER: “Thousands are baptised in Beijing, while in Zhejiang two priests are imprisoned” … (transfigurations)

- THE TIME Of Easter or Eastertide — Easter Seasons … (freerep)

- TAKING ON the Pernicious Secularization of Our Holidays … (bovinabloviator.blog)

- CHURCH CELEBRATES Easter at Jewish Synagogue … (livingchurch)

- TIMID HOSPITAL ‘bans hot cross buns at Easter to avoid offending non-Christians’… (dailymail)

- VIA THINKING ANGLICANS– Easter Day sermons; Easter weekend columns; more Easter columns … (ta)

- SERBIAN ORTHODOX Church to Her Spiritual Children at Pascha, 2007 … (freerep)

- BY NAME– “When Mary comes to the tomb of Jesus early Sunday morning and sees the stone rolled away, she immediately runs to tell the other disciples what she assumed to be true: someone had come and taken away the body of Jesus” … (allthesethings)

- CARIOCA: Becoming Who We Are: An Easter Homily … (cariocaconfessions.blog)

- VIA PRYAIN– The Rev. William Klock: “Therefore Let Us Keep the Feast” … (prydain)

- UP DOWN UNDER: “Easter attendance up significantly in Australia” … (news.com.au)

- MERE COMMENTS: “Easter Blessings” … (merecomments)

- THE JUSTICE of Easter: Thoughts from a Prison Yard, By Chuck Colson … (christianpost)

- DRELL– A Look Back: Last Year’s Easter Vigil Meditation … (descant)

- TELEGRAPH: “The flesh and blood hopes of Easter” … (telegraph)

- EASTER SERVICE in cemetery reflects faith … (freerep)

- UPERKPERISOU– : Easter Meditation. And via: Jason Engwer on Trialogue features a discussion of the importance of the resurrection on the Church Fathers … (uperekperisou.blog, triablogue)

- AMERICAN DIGESTThree Crosses of Easter … (americandigest)

- +LIVERPOOL– Good Friday: The Suffering of God … (islamdom.blog)

- FR. STEPHEN– And Into the Brightness; Which Way Does Time Work? … (fatherstephen)

- BENEDICT SERAPHIM: “Wow. (Or Sleepy Pascha Morning Thoughts on the Three Days’ Experience)” … (benedictseraphim)

- THE JUSTICE OF EASTER: Thoughts from Prison Yard … (townhall)

- TIMOTHEOS: Easter at St Alban’s Episcopal Church … (timotheosprologizes.blog)

- CAPTAIN YIPS: “Jesus is bringing to perfection all the promises of God” … (captainyips)

- EASTER’S HOPE is refreshingly infectious … (canada)

- UNION WITH CHRIST and Two Types of Christians … (scriptoriumdaily)

- ANGLICANS ONLINE Easter 2007– for those of you who like that sort of thing … (morgue)

- THE EASTER BUNNY Lives at Our House … (gatesofvienna.blog)

- MAKE YOUR OWN Giant Cadbury Egg … (neatorama)

- PAPAL EASTER MESSAGE: “Suffering, evil, injustice and death puts faith to the test. Christ shows the supremacy of love over the arrogance of evil, says the pontiff. He shows concern for emigrants and the poor the world over” … (spero)

- +CANTERBURY: human failure is overcome by God’s love. +York: Victory and Peace of the Resurrection … (ta)

- BLASPHEMY charges heighten Easter tensions for Pakistani Christians … (ekklesia)

- +SASKATCHEWAN’S Easter Message … (skdiocese)

- CHRISTIAN POST: Easter Observed Amid World Troubles; Tsunami Victims Celebrate Easter … (christianpost)

- FATHER CANTALAMESSA on Easter Faith … (zenit)

- DAWN EDEN: “One last thought about last night’s Way of the Cross” … (dawneden)

- CHRISTIANITY TODAY– Weblog: Raw Material Holy Week Overload Edition. The week’s religion news, not yet entirely organized … (christianitytoday)

- ANOTHER excerpt from Athanasius’ Festal Letters … (prydain)

- KRAALSPACE: “An Easter icon” … (kraalspace.blog)

- THE MIRACLE of the holy fire … (timotheos)

- SERMON: The Resurrection of the Body, by the Rev’d Dr. Leander Harding; another sermon … (leanderharding)

- GET RELIGION: An annual Easter story … (getreligion)

- BYFIELD– Missing Christians searching for answers … (calsun)

- KEN CONNOR– An Easter People: The Centrality of the Resurrection … (KenConnor)

- PASCHA POLYGLOTTA - Paschal Greeting in 250 Languages. The Bright Resurrection of Christ, the Pascha of the Lord … (benedictseraphim)

- VIA ZENIT: Easter Message From Jerusalem … (zenit)

- CHRISTIAN MUST soldier on in defence of eternal values … (scotlandonsunday)

- EASTER MESSAGE: VICTORY – THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST The Most Rev. Peter J. Akinola … (globalsouthanglican)

- PAPAL REFLECTION After Way of the Cross; Good Friday in Rome … (zenit, timotheos)

- BLOSSER BLOG: “A joyous Passover” … (pblosser.blog)

- CASUALTY CALL: A Marine’s Reflections on Good Friday … (evangelicaloutpost)

- ODOXY TODAY: “Life, Gardening, and an Orthodox Easter” … (orthodoxytoday)

- EASTER @ TitusOneNine … (titusonenine)

- RETURN OF SCIPIO BLOG: “He Is Risen” … (mikeaustin)

- EASTER GREETINGS from the Anchoress, plus lotsa good links from good folks … (anchoressonline)

- BETWEEN Good Friday and Easter … (worldmagblog)

- WHITEHALL: “i hope you are having a penitential triduum” … (anglicancatholic.blog)

- VIA AQUILINA: Funeral for a Friend … (fathersofthechurch)

- JOYFUL WORDS– The Exultet; The Paschal Homily of St John Chrysostom … (raphael.doxos.com)

- CONTINUUM– The Collects: Easter Day. The Sermon … (anglicancontinuum)

- LOBSTER POT– On Pascha … (prayersthatmatter.blog)

- TOM WRIGHT: In these troubled times, Easter’s message of resurrection is a powerful one … (guardian)

- ONE COSMOS: “Easter’s Unday”; and “Post-Traumatic Blessed Syndrome” … (onecosmos.blog)

- SARAH HEY: “The Christian Teaching on the Atonement and Christ’s Suffering: A Tonic for Jeffrey John’s Theories” … (standfirminfaith)

- CARIOCA Becoming Who We Are: An Easter Homily. Pregnant Silence… (cariocaconfessions.blog)

- RESURRECTION Bunny … (scriptoriumdaily)

- EASTER HOPE in New Orleans. Western, Eastern Christians Observe Holy Week and Easter; Jews Celebrate Passover … (pbs.org)

- QUESTIONS of Faith Irks Christians … (azcentral)

- THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST: The gospel according to Mel, by Mark Steyn … (steynonline)

- A MANIFOLD RESURRECTION: “Why the risen Jesus met people in five different ways–and still does” … (CT)

- THE INTEGRATION of life in Christ … (canadianchristianity)

- ROGER KIMBALL: “Tempus fugit” … (newcriterion)

- STAND FIRM– “Open Thread: What One Word Describes What Christ Accomplished Through His Death and Resurrection” … (sf)

- HOLY WEEK: Mary of Clopas, Jesus Knows His Women, and Some Thoughts on the Tomb of Jesus … (scriptoriumdaily)

- CURT JESTER: If Nicholson and not Caviezel has been cast as Jesus … (curtjester)

- BOZELL: Easter Striptease and Chocolate Jesus … (newsbusters)

- SPAIN: Easter parade entwines Muslim prayer beads in hands of Virgin Mary statue … (jihadwatch)

- BETWEEN CROSS and Resurrection in Narnia … (scriptoriumdaily)

- MAINSTREAM– Does “gay marriage” undermine heterosexual monogamy? … (mainstream)

- EASTER Evidence … (ncregister)

- MAGIC STATISTICS: “Easter-Day”; Christ is risen! Indeed, he is risen! Easter Even … (magicstatistics)

- MICHELLE MALKIN: Easter 2007. Easter Meditations … (michellemalkin)

- PASTORS feel the pressure on Easter morning … (dailynews)

- ANGLICAN EASTER Greetings from the Congo … (mainstream)

- SIMON COULTER– Not the Easter message … (telegraph)

- THE WOMEN of Holy Week: She Dreamed the Nightmare, Pilate’s Wife Procula … (scriptoriumdaily)

- MEDIA MADNESS– “Easter, ABC-Style: Cluster Bombs, ‘Pagan’ Easter Bunny” … (newsbusters)

- CRANMER BLOG: “He is not here. He is risen!” … (archbishop-cranmer.blog)

- WYOMING’S 2007 State Easter Egg: a Masterpiece! 2007 State Easter Eggs … (neatorama)

- HAPPY EASTER from A Conservative Blog for Peace … (sergesblog.blog)

- MOCKING Christ has not, in years, seemed this childish – even cowardly. And no, I’m not a Christian … (blogs.news.com.au)

- DRELL– A Look Back: Last Year’s Easter Vigil Meditation … (descant)

- EASTER IN VIETNAM: An Extraordinary Account … (chiesa)

- HIS WHAT-NOW?!? Store gets egg on its face over Christ’s Easter ‘birth’ … (timesonline)

- GOOD FRIDAY 2007, By Richard John Neuhaus … (FT)

- GNOSTICAL EASTER: “To think that the central meaning of Easter depends upon something spectacular happening to Jesus’ corpse misses the point of the Easter message and risks trivializing the story” .. metaphors risen from a deathly lack of imagination.. or something like that. … (WAPO)

- THE RETURN of Zombie Jesus … (shaidle)

- GUTLESS GOOGLE? K-LO: “What, No Easter? I wasn’t expecting a risen Christ, but at least an Easter bunny?” It was not so in past years … (nrotc)

- UMBILICUS, REDUX.. Easter baskets for your adult kids? … (bettnet)

- ON PROPER Pysanky Easter Eggs … (haha)

- BUSTED! The Shrinking Cadbury Easter Creme Egg [1.38 ounces to 1.2 ounces].. and they tried to deny … (neatorama)

- SCRAPPLEFACE: Intelligence Analyst Challenges Good Friday ‘Spin’ … (OTT)

- ON GOOD FRIDAY–”B.C.” creator Johnny Hart has died at age 76 … (wghsuccess)

- POPE BENEDICT XVI: a feast in heaven for lovers of God and man. Love for God and man is the garment with which people will be dressed to “feast in the sky.” God’s love transforms us into light in the Lord; without it we are dark inside … (spero)

- MAGIC STATISTICS for Holy Thursday; Maundy Thursday … (magicstatistics, anglicanphilosopher)

- EASTER MESSAGE 2007 - Patriarch and Heads of Local Churches in Jerusalem … (wfn)

- REMEMBERING Pascha (Easter) in Dachau … (crunchycon, orthodoxytoday)

- DISPUTATIONS: “The man carrying a jar of water who came in from the cold”; “Weep not for Me” … (disputations)

- HOLY WEEK in Lebanon… for Iraq’s Christians … (amywelborn)

- THE NEW YORK TIMES explains Easter — not; The importance of three days … (gr)

- VIA WELBORN.. Images of Calvary … (amywelborn)

- BOVINA BLOVIATOR: Quiet Entertainment for Holy Week … (bovinabloviator.blog)

- MERE COMMENTS: “Land of Fools” … (merecomments)

- EASTER MESSAGE– The Episcopal/Anglican Diocese of Egypt … (acns)

- THE WOMEN OF HOLY WEEK: Mary Magdalene, She Knew How To Love Him … (scriptoriumdaily)

- LENTEN PRAYER Of St. Ephrem The Syrian … (acton.org)

- MARK SHEA: “What Easter Means to Me”; End Game … (markshea.blog)

- PREACHMENT: The Right Reverend Edward L. Salmon Jr., Palm Sunday Sermon 2007… (confessingtiger.blog)

- CRANMER BLOG– “On this Maundy Thursday, let us recall the meaning and purpose of the Eucharist” … (archbishop-cranmer.blog)

- MATT KENNEDY– “It is finished–the three most beautiful and most horrible words of the Gospel.” … (sf)

- CRUCIFORM AXIS: See You on the Other Side of Pascha. Great and Holy Thursday … (benedictseraphim)

- NEWSBUSTERS– NY Times Doesn’t Get Meaning of Easter … (newsbusters)

- RELICS of Christ’s Passion For Sale on eBay: ICHR Calls for eBay Community to Engage in Good Friday ‘Cyber Protest’ … (earnedmedia)

- MAUNDY THURSDAY SERMON: “The Bishop of Saskatchewan urges his priests to be holy” … (skdiocese)

- AQUILINA– Got a Date for Easter? Palms and Circumstance … (fathersofthechurch)

- HOLY WEEK… in Mosul … (amywelborn)

- AN EXCERPT from the Festal Letters of Athanasius … (prydain)

- SCRIPTORIUM DAILY: “On Envy and Temperance” … (scriptoriumdaily)

- MOCKING Christ has not, in years, seemed this childish – even cowardly … (news.com.au)

- IMAGES OF CALVARY: “Contemporary Christian artists reflect on Good Friday” … (transfigurations)

- COLSON: “Christian Hope Found in the Resurrection” … (WaPo)

- VIA ORTHODIXIE: “On the Passion of the Saviour” … (southern-orthodoxy.blog)

- DAVID WARREN: “Especially in this Holy Week, we must realize that we are speaking of difficulties beyond our making, and of resolutions beyond our imagining. For those who were the builders of our civilization, as for those who may be the rebuilders, the task was and remains beyond the work of human hands. At the centre of the whole project was redemption in Christ” … (dw)

- CARIOCA– “The Office of Tenebrae is (for Episcopalians) an optional observance, usually on Wednesday in Holy Week.” … (carioca, blosser)

- ENTERING the Experience; or, It’s Both Mind and Heart … (benedictseraphim)

- WOULD IT BE NEWS if someone tried to write about The Good Death? … (getreligion)

- POOR DRELL: “There Is Not One Easter Vigil Service In Town!” … (descant)

- JEWS, CHRISTIANS celebrate freedom … (orovillemr)

- D’EXODUS According to DeMille: An epic from the Fifties … (NRO)

- VIDEO: Passion of the Christ - Love Song … (youtube)

- COURT NIXES Passover lamb sacrifice at Temple Mount … (prayersthatmatter.blog)

- EDWARD T. OAKES: Tatian on Death and Immortality … (t19)

- CELEBRATING the Lord’s Passover (The Triduum): Suggestions for Personal and Family Prayer, by Marcellino D’Ambrosio, Ph.D. … (catholicexchange)

- MEDIA-HOUND ZAWI HAWASS: Egyptian Propaganda and the Exodus … (merecomments)

- LOTS OF FULCRUM articles for Holy Week and Easter … (globalsouthanglican)

- TRANSFIGURATIONS: “For some, it’s all about the bunny” … (transfigurations.blog)

- A BEAVERTON FAMILY wants to know who destroyed a cross that has been part of their Easter tradition for years … (kptv)

- A GOOD FRIDAY? And ‘Evidences for the Resurrection‘ … (christianity.ca)

- JOSEPH BOTTUM: “why, exactly, do the Holy Week services need improvement with Dante? Aren’t there liturgies already in the books for Maundy Thursday?” … (firstthings)

- PARADISE: “Something beyond our experience” … (breakpoint)

- VIDEO– Orthodox Christian Pascha ( Easter) Video … (youtube)

- DC CHURCH WALK Is ‘Crowning Touch of Lent’ for Young Adults … (catholicherald)

- FIRST THINGS: “René Girard for Holy Week”; God and Man in Translation … (firstthings)

- FR. STEPHEN: “The Lamb - Slain from the Foundation of the World” … (fatherstephen)

- THE CROSS as a Journey: The Stations of the Cross for Protestant Worship … (freerep)

- GLEDHILL: “Birth, rebirth, resurrection” … (rg)

- AQUILINA– Hip Gnosis: “This is really very dim. Remarkably dim. Dim beyond belief.” … (fathersofthechurch)

- HAPPY EASTER: “Libyan leader denies Christ’s Crucifixion, denounces Christianity” … (freerep)

- VIDEO– - Johannes-Passion - Es ist vollbracht - alto aria … (youtube)

- VIA DRELL: “Liberal Episcopalians, Including A Bishop, Admit Resurrection” … (descant)

- A GOOD FRIDAY WEEK– “I love the Solomon Islands. Try and find ways to help those effected by this tsunami. If nothing else, pray” … (anglicancatholic.blog)

- JOHN UPDIKE– “Seven Stanzas at Easter” … (islamdom.blog)

- HOLY SITES: Are They Authentic? … (freerep)

- DR. SCOTT HAHN: “Mary Holy Mother” … (fr)

- SPECIALLY REFINED WAFFLE– Giles Fraser: Why liberals believe the resurrection … (churchtimes)

- SAINT SIMEON the New Theologian, Sixth Prayer before receiving the Immaculate Mysteries … (southern-orthodoxy.blog)

- CURT JESTER: “The Foot Washing 2000 maintains an electronic log that automatically registers its use during Maundy Thursday” … (curtjester)

- ON THE Easter Triduum … (freerep)

- REMEMBRANCE: Traditional Latin Catholic Mass … (youtube)

- THE YUMMY Easter bun … (ydr.com)

Who sees God’s face, that is self-life, must die;
What a death were it then to see God die?
It made His own lieutenant, Nature, shrink,
It made His footstool crack, and the sun wink.
Could I behold those hands, which span the poles
And tune all spheres at once, pierced with those holes?
Could I behold that endless height, which is
Zenith to us and our antipodes,
Humbled below us? or that blood, which is
The seat of all our souls, if not of His,
Made dirt of dust, or that flesh which was worn
By God for His apparel, ragg’d and torn?

~ John Donne, “Good-Friday, 1613. Riding Westward”

- ALL THESE THINGS– Conquering Death … (allthesethings)

- GOOD FRIDAY sorrow and hope. Remember: the Psalms are also prophetic.. and are the Prayerbook of Jesus himself … (acton)

- APOSTOLICITY– Jerusalem lies ahead … (apostolicity.blog)

- TWO SHROUD OF TURIN websites– a reminder … (shroud)

- RUTH GLEDHILL– ‘The First Supper’ … (gledhill)

- CARIOCA: crucifixus etiam pro nobis … (cariocaconfessions.blog)

- WHAT AUGUSTINE read in the books of the Platonists; or, why metaphors don’t raise the dead … (felixhominum)

- PALM SUNDAY by George Grant … (islamdom.blog)

- Easter ‘07: A Taste of Unity … (zenit)

- WELBORN: “The Palm/Passion Sunday reports are WONDERFUL…from all over, including a prison, including China”; Are any of your parishes doing Tenebrae? … (amywelborn)

- HOLY LAND PHOTOS: Holy Week and Easter. Don’t forget the Grotto of Gethsemane … (holylandphotos, google, christusrex)

- JESUS IS KING: Reflections for Holy Week and Easter Week … (fulcrum-anglican)

- FELIX HOMINUM– “preliminary sermon notes for Maundy Thursday” … (felixhominum)

- DOXOS: “Did it have to happen?” … (raphael.doxos.com)

- LANCELOT Andrewes on Lent … (skdiocese)

- THEODOR GASTOR: What Does the Seder Celebrate? … (titusonenine)

- IN THE AGORA: Holy Week - Tuesday … (intheagora)

- BABY BLUE: Holy Week Begins … (babybluecafe.blog)

- PETER OULD– Somebody Died for “Me” … (peter-ould)

- ORTHODOX Christians Worldwide to Observe Easter April 8 … (wfn.org)

- ON THE PASSION of the Saviour … (southern-orthodoxy.blog)

- FR. STEPHEN– “He Who Has Ears to Hear”; Reaching Holy Week … (fatherstephen)

- SACRED MUSIC for Holy Week– Two organists & one music devotee recommend their favourite Easter CDs … (anglicanplanet)

- DAWN EDEN: “In His Steps” … (dawneden)

- THE WOMEN of Holy Week: the Virgin Mary Knows Not To Call a Parent Happy Until the End … (scriptoriumdaily)

- A SERMON for Palm Sunday by Canon Robert Crouse … (skdiocese)

- THE MIRACLE of the Holy Fire in Jerusalem; Holy Fire Fetcher Under Fire … (orthodoxytoday)

- TIMOTHEOS: “The eucharistic preface for Holy Week” … (timotheosprologizes.blog)

- BRIDEGROOM Matins … (benedictseraphim)

- LOOKING to the Past this Easter, by Theresa A. Thomas … (catholicexchange)

- THE ENTRY of the Lord Jesus Christ into Jerusalem; the Sunday of the Palms … (benedictseraphim)

- CONTINUUM– “I would be interested to know what our readers are doing during this Holy Week — individually and corporately” … ()

- DRELL: “A Theological Question From the Residents of USP Pollock From The Retreat This Weekend” … (descant)

- FROM SLAVERY To Freedom: The Arduous Struggle Began Tonight … (sigcarlfred.blog)

- PALM SUNDAY at Onion Lake First Nation … (skdiocese)

- IS THE DESIRE to Avoid Hell Egotistical? (Part I) … (scriptoriumdaily)

- PONTIFICATIONS: “On the cross we see the fulfilment of what was announced at the gates of paradise lost”; “They went to meet him as the giver of life and conqueror of death” … (pontifications)

- A BABEL OF FAITH in the Holy City of Jerusalem … (spero)

- RESURRECTION Wins Big in Poll… (merecomments)

- THE GNOSTICAL Elaine Pagels is at it again, hawking as silk purse that sow’s ear of the Gospel of Judas … (fathersofthechurch)

- NY TIMES REPORTINGG: “The United States is demanding that Moses and Aaron, the Jewish leaders, continue to negotiate with Pharaoh” … (damianpenny)

- BETTNET– Do we need “eco-palms”? … (bettnet)

- CURT JESTER: “The Palm Pilate” … (curtjester)

Morning Prayer for Holy Monday

God whose word cannot be broken:
with Jerusalem we are stunned this Holy Week.
Like a city overcome with sudden devastation,
we are swept up in the confusion and desolation,
wondering what is happening.

Liturgy, Scripture, and song immerse us in the river that flows to betrayal and the cross. The gospel we have tried to make manageable has overturned our tables of control. The sufferings of Jesus that we try to avoid engulf us. The fruitless fig tree withers before the majesty of one whose mission is relentless and uncompromised.

Help us with all of your church to watch and pray, to behold anew the unfolding scandal and the ragged good news of salvation. Behold with mercy the agonies of the world where the suffering of Jesus is being completed, both then and now.

Let the Via Dolorosa for us be both acts of devotion and worship and of compassion and justice, so that Christ’s abundant sufferings become the world’s abundant consolations.

From a United Methodist website with prayers for each day of Holy Week

Art Credit: Web Gallery of Art. Luca Giordano, Christ Cleansing the Temple

***

Update:
In continuing to review various resources for materials for various Holy Week posts here on Lent & Beyond, I just came across an excellent and challenging meditation on Christ Cleansing the Temple. Here’s an excerpt:

Once resolved to come to Jerusalem, Jesus is fearless. He knows only one thing, and that is to do God’s business. And God’s business and that of the religious authorities in Jerusalem are not the same. Holy Monday has been linked traditionally with our Lord’s cleansing of the temple. By cleansing the temple of all its cheating and overall corruption, Jesus was directly challenging the hypocrisy of the Jewish religious leaders. The temple was built for God and for His people to come there to be with Him in prayer. “For thither the tribes go up, … to give thanks unto the name of the Lord.” (Ps.122:4) However it had become “a den of thieves”. In a sense Jesus threw down his gauntlet!

Just as Jesus challenged the hypocrisy of these religious leaders, so does He challenge and confront every kind of hypocrisy and insincerity, all cheating and deceitfulness in our lives and societies. Any act that cannot stand the piercing glare of Christ has to be either purged or extricated from us. Hypocrisy is the direct opposite to purity, and thus we have to remember our Lord’s saying that only the pure in heart will be able to see God, and enter His kingdom.

Put in the form of another of our Lord’s teaching, we cannot serve both God and mammon. In our quest for holiness, all dross must be purified. We need to be cleansed regularly from sin. We have to let the Spirit be like the heavy dew settling on the frosty ground. Bit by bit the dew saturates the ground until the frost begins to melt. Although at first it seems improbable, the soft dew will eventually melt the hard frost.
[…]
Holy Monday therefore demands us to examine our lives to see whether they glow with Christ’s purity and honesty, and to examine whether we live by Christ’s commandments or our own watered down version of them. After confronting ourselves through Christ’s eyes, the comforting factor of this day is that we can be cleansed of all that is not pure and honest within us.

From the entry for Holy Monday, by Catholic devotional writer Marianne Dorman, found here.

- PALM SUNDAY around the world via Flickr; Good Friday; Holy Saturday; and Easter Day & Pascha … (flickr)

- A PALM SUNDAY SERMON … (anglicancontinuum.blog)

- GAVIN DUNBAR — How important is the Resurrection to Christian theology?… (anglicanplanet)

- CARDINAL Newman’s litany of Christ’s suffering … (vultus.stblogs)

- EUGENE PETERSON– Recovering Our Resurrection Identity: Experiencing Christ’s resurrection comes in ordinary moments, like sitting down to a meal… (ctlibrary)

- ALL THESE THINGS– Crucify Him! (In the Highest) … (allthesethings)

- BRAD DRELL: “Forgiveness of Others Presentation At Grace Church, Monroe - My Notes” … (descant)

- IS LENT exactly 40 days or more? … (pbsusa)

- DAVID PHILLIPS: That first morning, it began in darkness … (anglicanplanet)

- A GREAT WAY to Explore Holy Week: Through Iconography … (benedictseraphim)

- STUNNING Revelation: Hell Exists … (wafflinganglican)

- THE INCARNATION: Cause of All Things Made, And Caused by None … (fatherstephen)

- CHRISTIANITY TODAY– Lenten resources … (christianitytoday)

- RESURRECTION not a vague ‘metaphor’ … (winnipegsun)

- DAWN EDEN– Last kiss … (dawneden)

- CRUCIFORM AXIS– An Explanation of the Holy Week Services … (benedictseraphim)

- PAPAL PREACHER Father Cantalamessa on the Passion of Christ … (freerep)

- SCHOOL PUTS Christ back in Easter. Pagans, Jews, atheists mocked, get no Easter-cake … (wcr.ab.ca)

- GOOD FRIDAY Fishy biz story in The Washington Times … (getreligion)

- THAT YOU MAY NOT Grieve as Others Do Who Have No Hope … (fatherstephen)

- LIVING CHURCH: Holy Week Drama … (livingchurch)

- LAZARUS, Nature & True Repentance … (southern-orthodoxy.blog)

- CHRISTIANITY TODAY: “How to Handle Desire: You see, you want. Then what?” … (CT)

- OCHLOPHOBIST– “Fasting in Orthodoxy is not anything like fasting as I have experienced it anywhere else. Orthodox fast like Mediterranean people argue, which is to say, it often makes no sense, from an organizational efficiency or public relations or philosophical point of view” … (sergesblog)

- ON GOOD FRIDAY, Rise With Hot Cross Buns … (thebulletin)

- A SERMON– The Rev. Daniel McGrath: an empty house will be taken over by unwanted guests … (prydain)

- THE BOUNDARY of Death … (fatherstephen)

- TEMPTATION and Accusation, by Mark Shea … (catholicexchange)

- BREAKPOINT: When Having Everything Just Isn’t Enough … (breakpoint)

- WEIGHTY WORDS– “Jesus had no intention of wresting the state to the control of high priests; he’d had quite enough of that sort. “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s,” he said, acknowledging a certain autonomy for the State, “and render unto God what is God’s,” he added, and let statists take heed”… (merecomments)

- TIMOTHEOS– An Instructed Eucharist… (timotheosprologizes.blog)

- THE GRACE of Repentance … (fatherstephen)

- VIA PRYDAIN– The Rev. Dr. Curtis Crenshaw: “Jesus and Lent” … (prydain)

- THE MEDICAL Account Of Christ’s Last Days and The Cross … (freerep)

- RABBI Jonathan Sacks writes in The Times about Passover … (timesonline)

- THE END is So Very Near … (raphael.doxos.com)

- C.S. LEWIS– “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”… (allthesethings)

- READ IT ALL– “Christ as a Gardener” by Andrew Hudgins … (worldmagblog)

- VIRAL VIDEO: Sad Kermit the Frog - Hurt … (viralvideochart)

- AN HOMILY for the Annunciation … (all2common)

- LONGENECKER– Priest Poem … (gkupsidedown.blog)

- THE “GRUMPIES” in Lent … (catholicexchange)

- MR. IAN GARRETT: “Easter Music” (John 19) … (prydain)

- KRAALSPACE: “Divine Dogs” … (kraalspace.blog)

- HE LENT me his ears … (dawneden)

- TURNING PALMS into crosses: sermon notes for Palm Sunday … (joewalker.blog)

- GEORGE WEIGEL: “Lent and the Modern Martyrs” … (catholicexchange)

- THE ENDING- Read the Book; You’ll Know How it Ends, by N.T. Wright … (newsweek)

- AQUILINA– Throughout Lent, Mark Gordon has been posting an amazing series titled “40 Days, 40 Graces.”… (fathersofthechurch)

- THE FOOTWASHING Ritual and the Sacrament of Holy Orders: A New Look at John 13 … (catholicexchange)

- JOE WALKER– Confessions V: three sorts of journey … (joewalker.blog)

- SILFLAY HRAKA– The Deadly Sin of the Day: Gluttony … (silflayhraka)

- IN CHRIST ALONE my hope is found … (babybluecafe.blog)

- THE FIRES OF HELL are real and eternal, Pope warns … (timesonline)

- FR. STEPHEN: “Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth”; “The Truth of an Icon“; “Boundaries Which God Has Set” … (fatherstephen)

- MATTINGLY– Lutherans in non-Roman Lent … (tmatt.gospelcom.net)

- FIRST THINGS– Tatian on Death and Immortality, By Edward T. Oakes, S.J. … (firstthings)

- BABY BLUE– Key Phrases to Watch … (babybluecafe.blog)

- TIMOTHEOS: “Lessons in reconciliation” … (timotheosprologizes.blog)

- ON WHY Lenten Discipline Matters … (christianity.ca)

- FELIX HOMINUM: “on looking stupid: Mary anoints Jesus” … (joewalker)

- DAWN EDEN: “Love’s special effects” … (dawneden)

- THE BEEB merges Christmas and Easter. So we celebrate the birth of the Holy Bunny, and the Wise Men bring him chocolate.. or something. Gledhill– Eastmas ‘Cons of Praise’ … (cartoonchurch, gledhill)

- PIPER: “The Morning I Heard the Voice of God” … (desiringgod)

- LENT: All Uphill from Here! What Was Old Becomes New (Again) … (Orfodixie)

- SUNDAY HYMN: “We Sing The Praise Of Him Who Died” … (magicstatistics)

- RICK BRANNAN of Ricoblog has finished his in-depth series on the Didache … (fathersofthechurch)

- BP. PAUL BARNETT: “The Transfiguration of Christ” … (prydain)

- HOLY WHAPPING– A Homemade Lenten Array … (holywhapping.blog)

- VIA PRYDAIN– The Rev. Clay Shadeck: “Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread” … (prydain)

- DAWN EDEN: “One thing I find fascinating about God is that not only does He love each of us as
though there were only one of us, as St. Augustine wrote, but He also loves each of us regardless of how special He is to us” … (dawneden)

- ME, ME, ME by Matt Kaufman: “The world around us celebrates self-absorption, and it’s all too easy to get caught up in that world. But Christians should have another alternative” … (boundless)

- PONTIFICATOR– “All that God looks for from us is the slightest opening” … (pontifications)

- GO FIGGER– Presbyterians observe the Stations of the Cross… (markshea.blog)

- RELIGION LINK– Lent, Passover and Easter: A roundup of story ideas … (religionlink)

- THE PENDULUM Of Prayer … (sigcarlfred.blog)

- ONE COSMOS: “Fly by Night Theology” … (onecosmos.blog)

- ORTHODIXIE– The Theotokos on NPR? Annual Lenten Superlative Awards … (southern-orthodoxy.blog)

- THE CRY OF THE CENTURION, by Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon: “Why did the centurion cry out?” … (orthodoxytoday)

- LONGENECKER– “Satan’s Way”; and The Gargoyle Code - 10 … (gkupsidedown.blog)

- THE SUNDAY of St. Mary of Egypt (The Fifth Sunday of Great and Holy Lent); Committing Sins and Committing to God … (benedictseraphim, orthodoxytoday)

- THE LENTEN PRAYER of St. Ephraim the Syrian … (orthodoxytoday)

- BISHOP Jeremy Taylor: “Of reading or hearing the Word of God” … (prydain)

- BY GOLLY, I PROTEST! “It was hell” … (normblog)

- PULPITING– “We have a living hope”: A passage from Dr. David Smith’s sermon this morning … (via skdiocese)

- READER BLOG: “As for His Body: here it is” … (reader.classicalanglican.net)

- THE ROOT of all evil? … (thesun)

- RESURRECTION to Appear on Silver Screen Again, Again, Again … (christianpost)

- FULL OF GRACE– behold the handmaid of the lord: happy annunciation. The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. David Warren also chimes in … (Various)

- AMUSING animated Passover Greeting: Who Let the Jews Out?… (felixhominum)

- HOLY FOOD– “It’s an old English tradition to serve Hot Cross Buns on Good Friday, but these sweet buns are good anytime of the year. The English generally prefer to flavor the buns with currants and citrus peel. In the United States, raisins and mixed candied fruit are the more likely addition to the spice-flavored dough” … (cooksrecipes)