Some Reflections on Holy Week

After celebrating the Triduum and rejoicing on Easter Sunday morning with our missions, I have arrived at St. Meinrad for my yearly retreat.  Here are just a few thoughts in my mind as I reflect back on Holy Week.

 

·        It’s amazing that the human body can endure Holy Week!  It’s even more amazing that the mind can even attempt to hold all the details in order.  It must be grace.  And sleep is good!

 

 

·        Faith is alive and real:  people have so much going against them to live a life of faith.  The likelihood that someone in the midst of our culture, with all the burdens that we each bear, would choose to lay down their own life for Christ and follow him seems so unlikely.  Yet, it happens!  And to see it happen is one of the greatest blessings of being a priest. 

 

·        It is such a gift to be a father.  Most of my young life I always wanted to be a father:  to have my own children.  As I discerned my call to the priesthood this was something I had to reconcile.  Well, in my first two years of priesthood being a father has never been lacking.  The blessing of being a spiritual father is beyond telling and sometimes overwhelms me with joy.  Baptizing people into the family of the church, walking with people in their marriages, helping to assist parents in raising their kids, sealing people with the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  All of these are generative actions and fulfill the paternal instinct. 

 

·        Mission is the life-blood of the church:  There is nothing more exciting than seeing the church at her best—that is, when she is being missionary.  We saw this over the last year in our Glenmary missions as people kept inviting others to consider joining the church.  We saw this over the last year when families, though so busy with many other things, took a pause in their lives to allow God to deepen their faith.  We saw this last year as our leaders in the church grew in their understanding of discipleship and began to take ownership for their baptismal call.  We saw this last year as the churches were jammed full with new members. 

 

·        The Easter story is part of our human condition.  One cannot honestly engage in the celebration of Holy Week and not see Christ, and his Passion, written in their hearts.  From his entrance as a King, to his rejection, to his silence, to his tears, to his discernment, to his agony, to his service, to his Communion, to his journey, to his forgiveness, to his Mother, to his death, to his Ressurection.  This is not an isolated story existing singularly in the cosmos.  This is our collective story.  This is the story of humanity.  This is the story of a loving God.

 

That’s enough for now.  More may come later.