For the last few weeks our roadsides have been ablaze with colour with row upon row of daffodils. It is a pleasant awakening to the arrival of spring - a reminder that Easter is a time for looking forward to regeneration and the celebration of new life.
In the Christian tradition, Easter Day is a reminder that Christ's Resurrection offers the gift of new life, while Good Friday, with its solemn commemorations, is a stark reminder that the Body of Christ is broken on the Cross and a call to both repentance and reconciliation.
In Christian thinking too, the Church has traditionally spoken of itself as the Body of Christ. But on this Good Friday, the Church as the Body of Christ is broken on the Cross. Internally, all the branches of the Church are broken under the weight and guilt of child abuse scandals. The latest revelations about Sean Fortune are shocking but by no means unique. Bishops on every continent are being accused of not acting swiftly, decisively and firmly against abusive priests. In the United States, 2,000 priests have been formally charged with sex offences against children, bishops have been accused of failing to co-operate with police, and cardinals have been accused of covering up the past. And these scandals are not confined to the Roman Catholic Church: similar scandals afflict the Anglican churches in Canada and Australia.
And the Body of Christ is broken on the Cross of the 21st century in many other ways too. The continuing failure of the ecumenical movement to bring about major, significant and visible reconciliation between the branches of Christianity, leaves the Church Universal broken and weakened in a world that has never been more in need of hearing the Gospel message of peace, justice, mercy and reconciliation. Yet still in the letters columns of this newspaper, priests and clergy continue to use the Sacrament of the Eucharist or Holy Communion -- the very sign of the Body of Christ - to belittle the teachings, traditions and messages of each other's denominations.
When will the Broken Body of Christ be healed? When will the Church realise, as Archbishop William Temple once pointed out, that it exists not for its own sake but for the sake of the world? When will the churches heal themselves and their divisions so that the message of peace, justice, mercy and reconciliation can be heard with clarity and credibility in a broken, divided and sorely hurting world?
Easter offers the hope of new life, new vision and new directions. The Churches can continue to lose credibility in an increasingly secularised world, or they can seize the opportunity for new directions presented by Easter to grapple with the scandals of abuse, to heal the scandals of division and to offer healing and new life both to those who are hurt and broken by abuses in the Church and to a hurt and broken world waiting for the true message of Easter.