Taste and See: The greatness of the Lord and the Easter Mystery

There are five Easter Prefaces that can be used with the Eucharistic Prayers during the Eater season.

The following one was used in St John’s Wood last Sunday – and perhaps in your church too – it’s title indicates the enormous theme it approaches:

The restoration of the universe through the Paschal Mystery

It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation,
at all times to acclaim you, O Lord,
but in this time above all to laud you yet more gloriously,
when Christ our Passover has been sacrificed.

For, with the old order destroyed,
a universe cast down is renewed,
and integrity of life is restored to us in Christ.

Therefore, overcome with paschal joy,
every land, every people exults in your praise
and even the heavenly Powers, with the angelic hosts,
sing together the unending hymn of your glory,
as they acclaim:

Easter is certainly not just about Easter Eggs and Easter Bunnies! Nor is it ‘just’ about the rising of Jesus from the dead – or at least there is much more to the rising of Jesus from the dead than an event in the history of one man.

The Resurrection is one might say a ‘game-changer’ or at least it reveals the nature of the game that is being played: the salvation of the world – of humankind and all creation.

This is no matter of personal devotion or private religiosity. It is much more, and it is at our peril that we allow the Resurrection to be domesticated in our prayer, our worship, our theology.

• Where is the power of God’s salvation needed in your life?
• In your community?
• In our world?

Photographs of the 15th Station, Lourdes. (c) 2012, Allen Morris.