As we enter into Holy Week (already?!) I must say that my mental and spiritual awareness skills have grown significantly. I’ve gotten better with it. Yet there is still something frantic about my mind and spirit. It’s as if there is a classroom full of 100 ideas and concerns within me that all have their hands eagerly raised for my attention.
What does one do in this case? Honestly the thought only hit me (somewhat anew) with full force last Friday when I was attending a Living Stations of the Cross put on by our Middle School, Adult Confirmation and RCIA groups at The St. Thomas More Newman Center.
This is Holy Week. At least ninety-eight out of the hundred things on my mind are insignificant by comparison. Insofar as I and my thoughts are like a stone skipping across the water—never resting in a single place for more than a milli-second—I must break from the skipping, and allow myself to sink into the mysterious waters of the Lord’s passion, death, and resurrection.
No doubt: Holy Week has a solemn urgency. It’s also very inviting.
I like the musical, Godspell (though not nearly as much as I love Jesus Christ Superstar, without which I don’t think I’d be answering the call to the priesthood) and I especially like the opening scene where John trumpets in the midst of the city, calling all sorts of ordinary people from their day-to-day lives to prepare for Jesus’ coming. Whether one is driving a taxi, shuffling around some dry cleaning, studying in the library – everything is dropped the moment that trumpet flares.
So it is with Palm Sunday, the top of Holy Week. Whatever is going on in my life these days (including Liturgical preparations) I would not have my life at all were it not for this time. It is plain Christian sense I suppose, but it feels bigger, more vivid, the less I take it for granted.
Holy Week is here: time to rejoice (Hosanna!), break bread, ponder sacrificial love, and rejoice some more. How glorious it is to have a sacred cause to let go of the incessant skipping along, and to let the beckoning water envelop us into something deeper.