Wonderful Easter fare on the flat screen

Every Easter I look out for some innovative religious programmes and I wasn’t disappointed this year.

One of the most imaginative was Heavenly Gardens (BBC1) which had an episode for Good Friday and one for Easter Sunday. Actor and singer Alexander Armstrong along with garden designer Arit Anderson (familiar to viewers from Gardeners’ World) presented a show that explored the relationship between gardening and religious faith – greatly pleasing I’d say to those with an interest in both, of some interest to those with an interest in one or the other and presumably of no interest to those with an interest in neither!

At all stages they enthusiastically linked the special gardens to broad biblical themes (Eden, Gethsemane), to themes of the Holy Week and Easter season – pointing up the symbolism of water, trimming back and new growth and referencing the garden where Jesus was buried. This was the first time I’d heard the phrase “garden evangelism”, though the show wasn’t at all preachy.

The Good Friday episode featured Pluscarden Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in Scotland. We saw the monks in prayer and in the cultivation of their gardens – some for the cultivation of necessary food, some for facilitating reflective meditation. This balance of work and prayer was central to their vocation, and we learned that the garden was an integral part of the creation of such monasteries under the rule of St Benedict.

Experience

Sometimes I find the use of drone footage a little gimmicky but in these programmes it was beautiful, highlighting the garden designs from above, a viewpoint that even the original garden designers never got to experience except on paper.

In the Easter Sunday episode there was much of historical interest as we visited Scone Palace and gardens, where Kings of Scotland, including Macbeth, were crowned. The final location was Alnwick Garden in Northumberland, truly a triumph of garden design and here the aerial photography was particularly striking as we viewed the marvellous colours and patterns – including the Serpent Garden with its winding hedge serpent capturing the theme of temptation.

The Leap of Faith (RTÉ Radio 1) on Good Friday also had an Easter theme. It was unusual in that, while introduced by regular presenter Michael Comyn, it was actually a special episode of a podcast called Things Unseen. Presented by Emily Buchanan, former BBC religious affairs correspondent, it explored the grief of two women who had lost children and what Easter meant in that context.

Margaret Pritchard Houston had lost two baby boys, Isaac and Ezra, both of them still-born, and now works for the Church of England as a Children’s Ministry Adviser. Her work in the family bereavement area gives her a sense that her deceased children have a legacy, an impact on the world they inhabited so briefly.

I was really taken with the Easter Sunday Eurovision Mass from Paris”

One of the anniversaries was just a week earlier, so Easter had a particular poignancy. In the first bereavement she “turned instinctively” to a God whose own son had died, but it was more difficult to process the second time. Yes there was anger but it wasn’t really at God, though she might have expressed it to him – this was “a broken, fallen world” and these things happened.

Maria Ahern’s young adult son James died in a car crash and she was very definitely angry at God, though her Greek Orthodox rituals were helpful. Mary, mother of Jesus was now the focus of Easter for her – she could relate to Mary as the “original bereaved mother”.

The figure of Mary also meant a great deal to Margaret, and she remembered 2016 when the feast of the Annunciation fell on the same day as Good Friday – this for her showed in a striking way the connection between birth and death.

Again this week I was impressed by the service of priests and ministers providing online services through webcams and the like. The daily Masses on RTÉ News Now continued this week and RTÉ’s main religious services for the Easter Triduum were a blessing. I was particularly struck by the outdoor Stations of the Cross that provided a backdrop for the Good Friday ceremonies coming from Multyfarnham in Co. Westmeath.

While I like to engage primarily with my local parish, via webcam, I was really taken with the Easter Sunday Eurovision Mass from Paris. There’s something so graceful about the liturgy in French and as always the narration of Fr Thomas McCarthy was an excellent accompaniment.