Walking through Holy Week - Don’t Rush to the Resurrection
This image of the wooden cross was taken by J. Whitley at Sacred Heart Retreat House in Sedalia CO
What is your favorite Holy Day? Most think of Christmas -the joy, the family time, the music, the celebration of Jesus’ birth.
But for me, it’s Holy Week - especially the Holy Tridiuum.
Holy Week, is quieter - a time of reflection, solitude and gratitude. It is important to take the time and think about what is happening during this week.
Imaginative prayer is a beautiful way to enter into Holy Week. On Palm Sunday, we hear the Passion Gospel for the first time. As you listen, choose a person and stay with them throughout the week.
See what they saw. Smell what they smelled. Cry the tears that they cried. Feel what they felt.
Will you walk with Peter, who denied knowing Jesus three times. Or will your heart be drawn to Mary, hearing Simeon’s words echo in her mind “A sword will pierce through your own soul also” ?
In my own life I experienced a life-changing Holy Tridium, after the death of my child. I was drawn to Mary, somehow finding comfort in knowing she understood my grief - and I began to understand hers.
The tears I shed that year were not only for my own loss, but for Mary, our Blessed Mother, who endured the suffering of her Son.
My relationship with Mary changed after that year, she was not just the Mother of my Savior, our Blessed Mother. She is my sister in grief.
Take the time to partake in the celebrations of the Holy Tridium, feel the pain of Jesus and all he suffered for each of us. Feel the emotions of his close companions, Peter, John or even Judas. Maybe you are drawn to someone not mentioned in the passion but whose life was changed by Jesus, such as Lazarus, his sisters Mary and Martha, or the women at the well.
Whoever you decide to follow during this time, make sure to take the time this week to enter into the Passion.
Read all 4 accounts of the Passion found in the Gospel, walk with those who were there. You might even write what you experience in a journal.
Then pause and reflect on your own relationship with Jesus - His love for you , then, now and always.
My prayer for you is that this Holy Week gives you the space to pause, to reflect, and to encounter Jesus in a deeper way than ever before.
Choose Joy Always
Jane