I went back and forth about doing a Sunday Smiles on Easter–memes are often, by their nature, snarky and often a bit crude. Is it appropriate to dump a bunch of snarkiness onto the internet on Christianity’s holiest day? Probably not, but I am going to do it anyway […]

May all of our readers have a happy and blessed Easter celebration today! We would also like to wish our Jewish readers a belated blessed Passover, which took place a week ago. Tonight’s Gospel reading from the Easter Vigil is Luke 24:1–12, when the women come across the empty […]

ALL doctors must regularly confront the fact of the end of life. I have some standout memories of my own, and I should warn you that some of these are quite distressing. The first was when I was a very junior doctor, about 18 months into my career. The patient, a man in his sixties, […]

A LONG time ago I wrote about the one-act opera Cavalleria Rusticana and the marvellous Intermezzo, and you can read the article here. The setting of the work is a 19th century Sicilian village; the action takes place on the morning of Easter Sunday. Santuzza has been seduced and abandoned by Turridu. After he dies […]

TWO thousand years ago a working-class Jew in Israel was executed by the Roman authorities at the instigation of Jewish religious leaders. He was buried, yet rose again, and history pivoted. The lives of billions were renewed; as a result old nations fell and new arose, cultures and science developed, all was changed utterly. Yet […]