Alleluia! He is risen!

Happy Easter! It was marvellous to drive home from the Vigil Mass at a nearby church yesterday evening knowing that everything is different, even though everything looks the same. Christians have 3D specs, as it were, through which they can percieve reality in its fullness. All around me people were going about their affairs, many of whom, I expect, will have no explicit faith in Jesus' resurrection. Yet we are all included in this event, I thought, as I looked at the motorists waiting with me at one particular traffic light. Why have I been chosen to receive this knowledge? There can be only one answer I realised (with some misgivings!): to give it to everybody else.

I had a blessed holy Week. I was invited to preach and hear confessions in St Patrick's Church in Huddersfield on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. On Wednesday evening I joined my brother priests at the Chrism Mass in the Cathedral and we renewed our priestly promises - always a moving moment. Then I celebrated the Triduum at St Paul's Alwoodley (I was on call lest I was needed elsewhere in the diocese but it turned out that I was not). I concelebrated the morning Easter Mass at St Mary's, Horsforth.

Here's a picture of Fr Ian Smith (centre) and members of his team in the Parish of the Holy Redeemer (of which St Patrick's forms a part) in Huddersfield. It's one of the new "mega-parishes" (it comprises three churches) and it is running like clockwork.