Most of us if asked “where do you live” would probably respond with a street address. But imagine that someone asks you this as a significant meaning-of-life question, what would you answer then?

The question is in significant part about where your mind and heart, energy and passions spend their time.

The question is about an internal place of stability and security, an inner touchstone.

Put simply, the question is about your soul.

I wonder if most of us spend much of our time living in a kind of interregnum between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, as if the death has happened, but the resurrection is not really a present event yet?

Without a resurrection conviction we can do nothing more than look backwards, as at many funerals when the entire focus is on celebrating a human life without a hope for the future.

The same attitude threatens to overwhelm us when we get a bit down, when a bad day or even a negative comment can turn our thoughts from beauty and hope to gloom and grief.

In short, I suppose we can slip into living as Holy Saturday people,  failing to realise that Easter Sunday has already given us a new beginning. Yes, the new beginning has been given, but as with all gifts we need to receive what is offered. I will refer to this again in tomorrow’s Easter reflection when I speak about Baptism as the beginning of our eternal lives.

So in preparation, on this Holy Saturday, let us turn to Jesus asking him to pour out on us and those we love the fullness of risen life, as we celebrate his resurrection beginning tonight with the Easter Vigil. In this great liturgy we will be inspired by those receiving the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist for the first time.

I will never forget my grandmother waking me early on Easter Sunday morning so that we could see the sun dancing in celebration of the resurrection of Jesus. (an ancient Irish belief), Then a little later my grandfather would take us out to the hen-house to collect the chocolate eggs that the hens had laid in their Easter excitement.

Somehow back then I picked up the fact that Easter was an event of cosmic and joy-filled reality, so big that it affected the hens and even the sun.

My prayer is that all those who have shared this Food For Faith Lenten retreat will appreciate more deeply that when we live with God and in God, we are always fully at home whatever uplifts or befalls us.

I could not live without this confidence.