Let’s look forward to the Holy Week

YES, we have to be eager to go through the Holy Week, not

because it is fun time with the family and friends in the beach and

other resorts, but because it is the holiest of weeks.

            It is THE week, the mother of all weeks, the most

important week in the liturgical year, when we end the long

penitential preparation of Lent and celebrate nothing less than the

climax of Christ’s redemptive work with his passion, death and

resurrection.

            When we say “celebrate,” we are referring to a liturgical

celebration where the events celebrated are not simply remembered, but

are actually made present. This is the essence of liturgy.

            In the liturgy we become contemporaries of Christ and

direct witnesses of the events. That’s how the reality portrayed by

our faith is. It is a reality that, of course, goes far beyond what

our senses can capture and what our intelligence can grasp. That is

why we have to work out our faith. Otherwise, we would be hanging in

the air.

            It’s important that we don’t lose our spiritual bearing as

we go through the Holy Week. Now we have to make some special effort

to achieve this ideal, since the environment today is so paganised

that many people prefer to be in the beaches than in churches during

Holy Week.

            If we go by our faith, it’s the week when we practice the

most rigorous of our spirit of penance and sacrifice to match with the

very passion and death of Christ on the Cross. That’s simply because

we are meant to unite our whole life with the offering-sacrifice of

Christ’s life to his Father. That way, we would enjoy the consequence

of Christ’s redemptive work.

            We have to remember that we can only resurrect with Christ

if we also suffer and die with him. St. Paul describes it this way in

his Letter to the Romans: “If we have been planted together in the

likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his

resurrection.” (6,5)

            The darkest and the brightest moments of our life are

acted out in the Holy Week. The ugliest of our malice and the fairest

of the love of God which is offered to us to live out is dramatized

and sacramentally presented to us in Holy Week.

            We need to meditate on the Passion of Christ to get a

glimpse of the victory of the resurrection that awaits us. We should

train our mind and heart to capture this wonderful reality, presented

to us by our Christian faith, and to react accordingly, that is, to

enter into the very dynamics of authentic loving.

            In the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ, we see

in action those very consoling words of Christ: “Greater love than

this no man has, that a man lays down his life for his friends.” (Jn

15,13)

            What actually takes place there is Christ, being sinless,

assuming all our sins and dying to them so that we may have a way to

resurrect from them through his own Resurrection.  This is the

ultimate of love!

            This much the Letter to the Hebrews affirms: “Christ

offers himself only once to take the faults of many on himself, and

when he appears a second time, it will not be to deal with sin but to

reward with salvation those who are waiting for him.” (9,28)

            This is what supreme love is all about. It is not

contented with wishing others well or sharing things with others. It

will go to the extent of suffering for the others, making as one’s own

the burdens of the others, even if the others would not correspond. It

is a love that is fully given and completely gratuitous!