VICAR

Dear Readers of Country Squire Magazine, I trust this Sunday finds you well, perhaps with the last of the Easter chocolate still hidden away in the pantry and the spring sunshine warming the windowsills. There is a particular gentleness to the Sunday after Easter, isn’t there? The grand celebrations have faded, the family have returned to their homes, and the world settles back into its familiar rhythm. Yet something lingers in the air—a quiet afterglow of that glorious dawn.

It is easy, I find, to be caught up in the excitement of Easter morning. The alleluias ring out, the church is decked with lilies, and our hearts soar with the joy of resurrection. But what of the days that follow? What of the Monday morning when the washing needs doing and the work awaits? It is one thing to believe on Easter Sunday. It is quite another to carry that belief into the ordinary, unglamorous business of living.

The disciples knew something of this, I think. After the astonishment of that first Easter, they had to return to their nets, their roads, their daily routines. The risen Lord met them there—not only in the empty tomb, but on the lakeshore, by the roadside, over a simple breakfast of bread and fish.

This week, I invite you to join me in a prayer for the Sunday after Easter. Let us pray not for mountaintop experiences, but for the grace to recognise the risen Lord in the ordinary moments of our ordinary days.

Dear Lord, we come to You this Sunday, still lingering in the glow of Easter morning. The lilies have not yet faded, the alleluias still echo in our hearts, and we give thanks afresh for the empty tomb and the victory of love over death. But Lord, we confess that we are people who struggle with the day after. The excitement fades. The family departs. The ordinary world calls us back to its routines—the laundry, the accounts, the mending of fences and the tending of flocks. Teach us that You are no less present on this quiet Sunday than You were on the glorious dawn of resurrection. We pray for the disciples who walked the road to Emmaus, their hearts heavy even after the news of the empty tomb. They did not recognise You at first, Lord. You walked beside them, and their eyes were kept from seeing. Forgive us for the same blindness. Open our eyes to recognise You in the stranger, in the breaking of bread, in the kindness of a neighbour, and in the quiet beauty of the countryside unfolding around us. We pray for Thomas, who missed Your first appearance and struggled to believe. He needed to see, to touch, to know for certain. We are so often like Thomas, Lord. We doubt when we cannot see. We falter when the evidence seems thin. Meet us in our doubt, as You met him. Do not rebuke us for our questions, but draw near to us with patience and with grace. We pray for the fishermen who returned to their boats, uncertain of what else to do. They went back to the familiar, to the work they understood, even as their hearts were still turning over the mystery of Your resurrection. And You came to them on the shore, Lord. You called to them across the water. You prepared breakfast over a charcoal fire. Bless all who return to ordinary work this week, unsure of how faith fits into the daily grind. Meet them at their desks, in their fields, beside their ovens and their workbenches. Show them that no place is too ordinary for Your presence. We pray for the slow work of belief. For the small accumulations of trust that build over time. Grant us patience with ourselves when faith feels thin, and grant us courage to keep showing up—to prayer, to worship, to kindness—even when we feel nothing at all. And finally, Lord, we thank You for this quiet Sunday. For the pause between the celebration and the long march of ordinary time. Let us carry the hope of Easter not as a single shout, but as a steady flame—burning quietly in the background of every ordinary day, ready to flare up when we most need its light. Amen.

God Bless You All.

May this Sunday after Easter be for you a day of quiet restoration. The alleluias need not be loud to be real. Why not take a moment today to look for the risen Lord in the most ordinary of places—in the kettle boiling, in the cat stretching in a patch of sun, in the familiar face of someone you love? He is there. He has been there all along.