Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
Since Ash Wednesday, we have been on a spiritual journey leading us to Holy Week, which begins today, Palm Sunday. Today we recall Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. It was a day filled with great joy and a day on which his disciples must have had high hopes for the future. As we hear the passion narrative from the Gospel of Luke, we realize that suddenly, it all changed. Jesus was arrested, tried, and executed. Within a few days his disciples went from hopeful exuberance to grief-stricken fear.
The liturgies of Holy Week are a way of spiritually reliving these key moments in the life of Christ and the history of salvation. On Holy Thursday, at the Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper, we will recall the institution of the Eucharist and the New Testament priesthood. We are reminded by the practice of washing feet that we are called to live the love to which the Eucharist testifies.
On Good Friday, we will hear the passion according to St. John. These passion narratives make very real the darkness of those last days and what Jesus, the incarnate Lord, endured in order that the greatest good could be achieved for us. We will have the opportunity to venerate the wood of the cross, “on which hung the Salvation of the World”. Good Friday was necessary so that Easter Sunday could come.
Finally, the Easter Vigil, the “mother of all liturgies” as it is called. It is the first celebration of the Resurrection and we rejoice in the victory that Christ won over death; how He restores life by destroying death from within death itself. We baptize adults, welcome those joining the Church, and renew our own baptismal promises.
I invite you to take seriously these special days of the Church year. Don’t miss the opportunity to encounter, in a profound way, the mysteries of Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection.
Sincerely yours in Christ Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life,
