As I write this message, we find ourselves in the last full week of the Lenten Season. The celebration of Holy Week 2009 begins with the liturgies of Palm or Passion Sunday this coming weekend. It has been the tradition that Palm Sunday initiates us into the holiest of octaves-the eight days of Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday. We begin this holy observance of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ with the blessing of palm branches that recall his triumphal entry into the holy city of Jerusalem. We are all joyfully implored to an intense, lively and prayerful Holy Week. This week is a week like none other, which commemorates the activities surrounding the Christ-event.
Some thoughts as Holy Week draws near…
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released a sobering study. Among many items in the study, this was very significant for us here: No religion in America has seen more members lapse than the Catholic Church. While Roman Catholicism remains the largest religious denomination in the USA, roughly 10% of all Americans are ex-Catholics. Perhaps Holy Week might be a time to return to the Church!
Psychiatrist Gerard May writes,“After twenty years of listening to the yearnings of people’s hearts, I’m convinced that all human beings have an inborn desire of God whether they are consciously religious or not, this desire for God is our deepest longing and our most precious treasure. It gives us meaning. Some of them have repressed this desire, burying it beneath so many other interests that we are completely unaware of it. Or we may experience it in different ways—as a longing for wholeness, fulfillment, and completion. Regardless of how we describe it, it is a longing for love. It is a hunger for love, to be loved, and to move closer to the source of love.”
Psychiatrist Gerard May writes,“After twenty years of listening to the yearnings of people’s hearts, I’m convinced that all human beings have an inborn desire of God whether they are consciously religious or not, this desire for God is our deepest longing and our most precious treasure. It gives us meaning. Some of them have repressed this desire, burying it beneath so many other interests that we are completely unaware of it. Or we may experience it in different ways—as a longing for wholeness, fulfillment, and completion. Regardless of how we describe it, it is a longing for love. It is a hunger for love, to be loved, and to move closer to the source of love.”
There is a Lenten song which summarizes these thoughts:
Marked by ashes, we have come,We, the world so troublesome,We, the members: Christ, our sum.Now we pray by day and night,Keep the fast to clear our sight,Share our goods to set things right.
Happy last week of Lent! .May you and I arrive at Easter, converted, changed and transformed.
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