This weekend we celebrate Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week. Holy Week certainly is the holiest week of the year. After several weeks of intense Lenten prayer, fasting and almsgiving, we enter into this holiest of weeks as our final preparation for the celebration of the Paschal Mystery of Our Lord’s Passion, death and Resurrection. Hopefully you’ve all had a fruitful Lent, but even if this Lent kind of got away from you, you can still make this Holy Week a meaningful time of preparation so that you’ll be ready to celebrate the great feast of Easter with the joy and dignity it deserves. Here are some suggestions:
1. Celebrate the entire Triduum. The Triduum liturgies are the holiest time of the Church year, and these exceptionally beautiful liturgies allow us to enter deeply into the Lord’s Passion and death so that we can celebrate His glorious resurrection with the greatest joy possible. The Triduum begins with the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Thursday at 7pm; followed by our observance of the Lord’s Passion on Good Friday at 3pm; and then we’ll celebrate the Easter Vigil on Saturday at 9pm. If you’ve never been to the Easter Vigil before, it is an incredible experience (especially this year when we will have several adults and older children in the parish being baptized by full immersion). It’s the longest Mass of the year, but I promise you, you won’t be sorry you came.
2. Go to confession. If you haven’t already gone during Lent — or if it’s just been a long time, period — we’ll have several extra confession times available on Tuesday evening, Wednesday evening and Thursday morning. And if none of those work for you, just email me to set up an appointment. There is no better way to celebrate Christ’s victory over sin and death than by allowing Him to wash away our own sins in this sacrament.
3. Add extra prayer to your routine. We will offer Morning Prayer instead of our Morning Mass on Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8:30am, so that’s a great chance to join your fellow parishioners in starting your day with prayer. But whether it’s that, or extra personal prayer or devotion, or adding family prayer, it’s important to set aside extra time with the Lord this week as we anticipate these holy days.
This week is indeed different than any other week of the year, so be sure to do something to make it look different. Whatever extra effort you put into preparing for our celebration of Easter Sunday, the Lord will reward a hundredfold.
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