“As unpleasant as it can be, it’s good for us to think about the specifics of the Passion of Jesus and to internalize the scourging, the crowning of thorns, Jesus struggling to carry that heavy cross, the nails, him hanging on that cross and as painful as all those physical aspects of the Passion are, the emotional trauma was even greater. Jesus was aware of and took upon himself all of the shame and harm from sin committed by billions of people and he did that purely out of love for each one of us and the appropriate response for us is to allow Lent to transform us not just during Lent, but beyond Easter. One thing we might consider doing is picking one of our Lenten practices and continuing that even after Easter and maybe we would dial back a little bit maybe in intensity or frequency. It would be a good thing to do this week to pray for prudence to pick one of those practices for after Easter. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve talked to people and they have developed a lifelong virtue and they explained that years ago it began as a simple Lenten resolution and for some reason that they can’t explain, they continued to practice that after Lent that year and it’s continued to be a virtue of theirs for 15-25 years. If Lent has been lukewarm because your resolutions didn’t materialize or they didn’t seem fruitful, this is no time to give up. Today is a good day to make a resolution to make Holy Week and beyond as great as we can. Whether our Lent was terrible or fantastic or somewhere in between, the devil would love for us to take our foot off the gas and for that reason and because of Jesus’ Passion we must, we have to persevere in our spiritual growth.”