Holy Week

We are at the threshold of Holy Week, the most important week of the whole calender.  This week reminds us of how much we are loved.  It is the week of our salvation.  This is the time when, as Luke puts it, Jesus "set his face like a flint" as he journeyed to Jerusalem where, in the tradition of all the prophets, he would be slain.

There is one difference, however, between the death of the Old Testament prophets and that of Jesus.  This is the story of the unfolding of salvation history. The tragic events of which lead us through betrayal, injustice, envy, hatred, and indescribable torture to a humiliating and lonely death on a gibbet with a howling mob spitting, snarling and cursing below him.

Yet this death was to lead to the explosion of joy we know today as Resurrection.  It was to open up for us the possibility of living for all eternity in that same joy and blessedness. It was the gift of forgiveness for past sins, the breaking of the stranglehold of Satan over us, the forging of a chain of love that was to unite Heaven and earth, reaching out through time and space to all peoples throughout the world until the end of time.

 Calvary is the place of the skull, the place of death, but it is also the refuge of sinners, an inexhaustible well of healing, a centre of reconciliation and of love.  Every drop of blood that Jesus shed on that first Friday we call good, was redemptive.  Each pain-filled gasp of sound that issued from his parched and cracked lips was an appeal to our heart.  "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing!" he cried out on seeing the upraised fists, hearing the imprecations of hatred and envy below him, feeling the agony of pain as he tried to lift himself up on the nails in order to get breath in his lungs to speak because his whole body was contorted and out of sync. What a God! When the chips were down, and Jesus was dying in unspeakable pain as he writhed in agony on the Cross as the sky darkened around him and his eyes were blinded by blood and spittle, then his whole being shone out with love - a love that resounds today in us as we reflect on what he did for us. 

Let's remember to spend some time this week on staying close to him and to his Mother Mary, standing so bravely at the foot of the Cross as her lovely, innocent Son gasped out  his life for us.  Let's think of that poor man dying beside him who only asked for Jesus to remember him. Think of it - what a God!  No saying, "well, you've been a very naughty boy, so you'll have to suffer a lot in the next world!"  He saw that man's sorrow.  "This day you will be with me in Paradise!"  That is love, that is total forgiveness.  Two men dying together, one innocent, the Son of the Eternal God, the other a thief, who had led what we call a bad life, who, in his own words, deserved to die.  Play the Taize chant "Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom" (click on title) and think of that scene.  Thank him for all the times you have received forgiveness and a chance to start again.  He is so close to us in Holy Week. Hold hands with Mary, and ask her to give you courage.  What a woman!  She knows what sorrow is, she will listen and heal and make you feel better.  She is, after all a mother, and that's what good mothers do.

Have a lovely Holy Week starting with the joy of Palm Sunday, and ending, or should we say beginning with Easter Sunday.  We shall be praying for you too. 

Tomorrow we will talk a little about the Eucharist and the Seder meal, the meal Jesus ate with his disciples before he went to Gethsemane. We call it the Last Supper.

God bless.