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THIS IS THE WEEK THAT IS
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We of a certain age remember the TV show “That Was The Week That Was,” familiarly known as TW3. It was a satirical look at the news, presented as only the BBC could do. It had a short life; pity, that.
But today we begin “The Week That IS.” Nothing is more central to our faith-lives, nothing is more immediate and “real,” than the days of Holy Week and especially the Triduum of the “Liturgy of the Lord’s Supper” and Adoration on Holy Thursday, the “Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion” on Good Friday, the Easter Vigil, and the “Liturgy of the Lord’s Resurrection on Easter Sunday morning. We remember that it happened, but we also make it real and present to us in the power of the Holy Spirit—every year, this is “The Week That Is.”
There is great irony, to me, that these most solemn days of our Church’s calendar are somehow not marked as “Holy Days of Obligation.” They should be, and I can only encourage everyone to come to as much of the Triduum as you possibly can, including Stations of the Cross on Good Friday afternoon—at 3:00 pm, the traditional time of the death of the Lord on the Cross. Our own liturgical participation is intensified as we read the Passion (from St Luke on Palm Sunday and St John on Good Friday) in parts—everyone enters into the proclamation of the mystery of our redemption.
On the 5th Sunday of Lent last year, we heard in the Gospel that some “Greeks” (that is, non-Jews) wanted to see Jesus. They came to Philip and Andrew, who told Jesus about them. I wonder if, during this Holy Week, we might make that request a central part of our own prayer: “Lord, I want to see you.” There is a “Praise and Worship” hymn that captures this pretty well—“Open The Eyes Of My Heart.” But I would make one change, if I were to make those lyrics my prayer—“To see you high and lifted up…” has to be taken (as Jesus indicated in this Gospel excerpt) as on the Cross. Do we want to see Him there, knowing the depth of His love for us, knowing the price He willingly was paying for our salvation, knowing the extent to which our own sins were the cause of it all? Can we look up into His eyes and hear the words I’ve been echoing these last days—“I love you uncommonly; let yourself be loved”? Perhaps one way to do this would be to focus on the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary and truly meditate on them as we pray, or use the appropriate meditations from St Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises…
“We are Easter people,” St Augustine reminds us, “and ‘Alleluia’ is our song.” But for us to sing this song with the proper understanding we must come to terms with everything that came before—the sadness, the sentencing, the suffering, the abandonment. All this is the reason why we can sing “Praise the Lord!” for this uncommon love. It is ultimate, total, sacrificial love offered by the One who is Love. Will we recognize the price and allow ourselves to be loved?