Holy Week 2008 will arrive with the liturgy of the Passion (Palm) Sunday. We are invited by the Church to join in celebrating throughout this holiest of weeks as we commemorate and celebrate the Christ event. Your presence and participation in your place of worship will place you in the proximity of God’s reach, touch and embrace. You will be within earshot of God’s voice which is attempting to speak to us. In these times of testing, transition and temptation, don’t we all need the reassurance and reaffirmation that only Christ can give us?
This annual observance called Holy Week begins on a high note as we recall the jubilant Jerusalem folk who waved palm branches to welcome Christ into His own city. The Reading of the Passion quickly gives us the sober twist of events. Largely due to political intrigue and fickleness that are interwoven by the conspiracy of Evil, Jesus meets his horrific “Hour of Darkness.” Join your faith community for the climax of events of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday — Easter Sunday. Perhaps the Spirit will inspire us all in the Way of the Lord that we have so easily abandoned or so willingly compromised.Now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation.
This annual observance called Holy Week begins on a high note as we recall the jubilant Jerusalem folk who waved palm branches to welcome Christ into His own city. The Reading of the Passion quickly gives us the sober twist of events. Largely due to political intrigue and fickleness that are interwoven by the conspiracy of Evil, Jesus meets his horrific “Hour of Darkness.” Join your faith community for the climax of events of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday — Easter Sunday. Perhaps the Spirit will inspire us all in the Way of the Lord that we have so easily abandoned or so willingly compromised.Now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation.
A final meditative piece that I would like to offer comes from the writer Anne Dillard. This popular author had converted to Catholicism and here is how she looked at that step. She said that at a Catholic Mass surrounded by so many people from different backgrounds with many different colors, shapes and ages, she said, “I am taking a stand with these people. Here I am. One of the people who love God.”
We are part of a whole civilization in danger of forgetting the true God. We are in the fast lane of agnosticism or practical atheism which is established on this point of view: Even if there is a God, God really doesn’t matter to me.
Holy Week is a gigantic spiritual huddle by which we hope to get inspired, challenged, comforted, forgiven, and loved by the person of Jesus Christ. Integral to Him is the restoration of the true God to pre-eminence in human life. It all begins by remembering God and God’s loving acts in human history.
The followers of Christ were forever changed by the victory of Christ over death and by meeting the Risen Lord in the weeks after Easter. May it happen again this Easter as we gather in prayer and are able to say, “I am taking a stand with these people. Here I am. One of the people who love God.”
We are part of a whole civilization in danger of forgetting the true God. We are in the fast lane of agnosticism or practical atheism which is established on this point of view: Even if there is a God, God really doesn’t matter to me.
Holy Week is a gigantic spiritual huddle by which we hope to get inspired, challenged, comforted, forgiven, and loved by the person of Jesus Christ. Integral to Him is the restoration of the true God to pre-eminence in human life. It all begins by remembering God and God’s loving acts in human history.
The followers of Christ were forever changed by the victory of Christ over death and by meeting the Risen Lord in the weeks after Easter. May it happen again this Easter as we gather in prayer and are able to say, “I am taking a stand with these people. Here I am. One of the people who love God.”
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