DIY resources for leading your own Easter Sunrise Ritual
For many years, I gathered on the beach with friends and community members for a sunrise Easter gathering. Easter Fire, as we called it, does not belong to any particular church and is not sponsored by a religious organization - it's a service by the people and for the people.
I've collected these resources to help you create your own Easter ritual, individually or with your family. This is about you, the mystery of Christ's resurrection, and the eternal sunrise.
Below is a suggested order of service for your Easter sunrise ceremony with readings, reflection questions, and songs for you to play on your device and sing along.
Opening affirmation
The easter motto is "Christ is risen" with the triumphant refrain "He is risen indeed!'.
[PAUSE for a moment]
Is this just an idea or can you think of examples of this in your own life?
Opening Prayer
Praying for light by John Philip Newell
Light within all light
Soul behind all souls
at the breaking of dawn
at the coming of day
we wait and watch.
Your Light within the morning light
Your Soul within the human soul
Your Presence beckoning to us from the heart of life.
In the dawning of this day
let us know fresh shinings in our soul.
In the growing colours of new beginning all around us
let us know the first lights of our heart.
REFLECTION by John O' Donohue
"On this Easter morning, let us look again at the lives we have been so generously given and let us let fall away the useless baggage that we carry -- old pains, old habits, old ways of seeing and feeling -- and let us have the courage to begin again. Life is very short, and we are no sooner here than it is time to depart again, and we should use to the full the time that we still have.
We don't realize all the good we can do. A kind, encouraging word or helping hand can bring many a person through dark valleys in their lives. We weren't put here to make money or to acquire status or reputation. We were sent here to search for the light of Easter in our hearts, and when we find it we are meant to give it away generously. The dawn that is rising this Easter morning is a gift to our hearts and we are meant to celebrate it and to carry away from this holy, ancient place the gifts of healing and light and the courage of a new beginning."
John O'Donohue
Dawn Mass Reflections at Corcomroe Abbey