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Posts from the ‘Holy Week’ Category

Mar 30

Desert Bloom, Spring Hope

“Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone but in every leaf of springtime.” – Martin Luther

“May we anchor ourselves to the now.
Not allowing our minds skip to what-ifs
or what-will-happen-whens.
Blessed are you trying to put aside
the “everything is possible” mentality.
You who know that sheer effort
will not put these pieces back together.
You who have lost perfection,
and found rest in “good enough” instead.
One small step,
one deep breath,
at a time.” – Kate Bowler

Amidst dried leaves and pine needles, softening ground
First buds push to light
Bloom breaks through, small but mighty
Spring, newness, resurrection
Winter to spring
One step, one breath at a time
Desert bloom.

“For no miracle disturbed them so much as that of Lazarus.” – St. John Chrysostom

Apr 14

Holy. Sacred. Path.

“It is not over,
this birthing.
There are always newer skies
into which
God can throw stars.”― Ann Weems, Kneeling in Bethlehem

Holy Week by Ann Weems

“Holy is the week …
Holy, consecrated, belonging to God …
We move from hosannas to horror
with the predictable ease
of those who know not what they do.
Our hosannas sung,
our palms waved,
let us go with passion into this week.
It is a time to curse fig trees that do not yield fruit.
It is a time to cleanse our temples of any blasphemy.
It is a time greet Jesus as the Lord’s Anointed One,
to lavishly break our alabaster
and pour perfume out for him
without counting the cost.
It is a time for preparation …
The time to give thanks and break bread is upon us.
The time to give thanks and drink of the cup is imminent.
Eat, drink, remember:
On this night of nights, each one must ask,
as we dip our bread in the wine,
“Is it I?”
And on that darkest of days, each of us must stand
beneath the tree
and watch the dying
if we are to be there
when the stone is rolled away.
The only road to Easter morning
is through the unrelenting shadows of that Friday.
Only then will the alleluias be sung;
only then will the dancing begin.”

The road to Easter.
No way to but through.
Walk the path, all of the way.
Love, the path and destination.

Apr 13

Ashes to Palms, Darkness to Light

Blessing for Palm Sunday by Jan L. Richardson
“Blessed is the one
who comes to us
by the way of love
poured out with abandon.
Blessed is the one
who walks toward us
by the way of grace
that holds us fast.
Blessed is the one
who calls us to follow
in the way of blessing,
in the path of joy.”

“May the blessings released through your hands
Cause windows to open in darkened minds.

May the sufferings your calling brings
Be but winter before the spring.

May the companionship of your doubt
Restore what your beliefs leave out.

May the secret hungers of your heart
Harvest from emptiness its sacred fruit.

May your solitude be a voyage
Into the wilderness and wonder of God.

May your words have the prophetic edge
To enable the heart to hear itself.

May the silence where your calling dwells
Foster your freedom in all you do and feel.

May you find words full of divine warmth
To clothe the dying in the language of dawn.

May the slow light of the Eucharist
Be a sure shelter around your future.” – John O’Donohue

Walk, witness, partake.
Holy.
Sacred.
Awe.
Winter to spring.
Grief to grace.
Fear to love.
Death to Resurrection.
The invitation is to all, not the select few.
Though few enter.
Enter.

“One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organization do not constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team.”― A.W. Tozer

Mar 30

Resurrection Air

“Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them.”― Leo Tolstoy

“On Holy Saturday I do my best to live in that place, that wax-crayon place of trust and waiting. Of accepting what I cannot know. Of mourning what needs to be mourned. Of accepting what needs to be accepted. Of hoping for what seems impossible.”― Jerusalem Jackson Greer

The aftermath of grief.
The lingering.
The numbness.
We all have walked this when a loved one dies.
The threshold of never going back to the way it was.
And yet.
Hope.
Gently pulls and then carries you forward.
Day by day, little by little.
From empty heart to empty tomb.
The middle place.
Resurrection air coming soon.
Wait.
Hope.
Trust.
Breathe.

“The resurrection tells us it is never too late. Every so often we will be surprised. We must believe that the stone will be rolled back, and we must be ready to poke out our timid heads, take off the linen bindings of death, and walk free for a time, breathing resurrection air.”― Ronald Rolheiser, Prayer: Our Deepest Longing

Mar 24

The Road to the Third Day

“It is why every single expression of faith is provisional—because life carries us always forward to a place where the faith we’d fought so hard to articulate to ourselves must now be reformulated, and because faith in God is, finally, faith in change.”― Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer

“We are destined to be fully redeemed, and unlonely, only when the kingdom about which Jesus preached comes in all its completeness. In the meantime, we must give up attempting to find complete fulfillment through partial and pseudosolutions. We must face up to our loneliness, accept it, stop running from it, stop letting it propel us into all kinds of dissipating activity, and stop seeing its resolution as lying exclusively in a journey outward. As hard as that is to do, we must, at some point, stop our frenzied activities and look inward for an answer. The journey toward solitude begins with this first step.”― Ronald Rolheiser, The Restless Heart: Finding Our Spiritual Home in Times of Loneliness

Palm Sunday.
The start of Holy Week.
The final leg of the journey to Easter.
The third day only comes after day one and two.
May the sacred ground of this week stop you in your tracks.
Bring you to your knees.
Beyond cynicism, anger, denial.
No religion required.
Just an open heart.
Courage to take the journey in.

“Faith is not the same thing as being able to imagine God’s existence or even of being able to feel God on an emotional level. The mind is mostly unequal to the task to the task of imagining God’s existence and the heart is often just as inept at giving us any feeling of it. But God doesn’t cease to exist for that reason, nor is faith dead just because the imagination and the heart have run dry. God exists, independent of our perceptions.”― Ronald Rolheiser, The Shattered Lantern: Rediscovering a Felt Presence of God

Apr 7

Bear the Weight and the Wait

“How great is the love of God! He loved me long before I knew His name. He wooed me, chased me, enthralled me, and captured my heart. He didn’t prove His love at a candlelight dinner. There were no long-stemmed roses, but there were thorns. Yes, there were thorns.” – Katherine J. Walden

“Good Friday is not about us trying to “get right with God.” It is about us entering the difference between God and humanity and just touching it for a moment. Touching the shimmering sadness of humanity’s insistence that we can be our own gods, that we can be pure and all-powerful.” – Nadia Bolz-Weber

Enter fully into the heaviness of this day, Good Friday.
What is Good about this?
Carry a sliver of the Cross.
Jesus bearing all but your sliver.
On the edge, flounder, a thread of hope.
Held in grace and love.
Remember and remain.
For when Sunday comes.
The third day.
Redemption. Resurrection. Easter.
It means nothing without the angst of Good Friday, the weight.
The hollowness and exhaustion of Holy Saturday, the wait.
Sunday comes, but not without Friday and Saturday.
Sacred, holy ground.
Preparing us for transformation to Easter people.
The gift of spring.
Hope fulfilled.
It is and will be done.

“We focus on Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday, but we forget to pause in the stillness of the days between. Find time today to be present in that place of waiting. There is treasure to be found in the sacred peace that comes as you breathe in that place of quiet surrender. Don’t rush through the space called “Between.” – Katherine J. Walden

Apr 6

The Wilderness

“I believe in God – not in a Catholic God; there is no Catholic God. There is God, and I believe in Jesus Christ, his incarnation. Jesus is my teacher and my pastor, but God, the Father, Abba, is the light and the Creator. This is my Being.” – Pope Francis

“When we walk without the cross, when we build without the cross and when we proclaim Christ without the cross, we are not disciples of the Lord. We are worldly. We may be bishops, priests, cardinals, popes, all of this, but we are not disciples of the Lord.” – Pope Francis

The three-day journey to Easter begins with Holy Thursday.
Resurrection Sunday, calling to spring and new life.
Don’t rush to Sunday.
Take the entire journey, no shortcuts.
Enter the wilderness for a few days.
Last supper, washing of feet, communion, the garden, denial, 30 silver coins, Pilate, the Cross, Simon, Veronica, Mary, the women who stayed to the end to witness and remain.
It is finished.
Holy sacred days through the wilderness.
Walk with hope, held in grace, do not fall asleep.
Wilderness to Easter.
The journey to Easter.

“Hope does not tell us that soon life will be the same again as it was before the loss. No, hope tells us that life will go on, differently, yes, but go on nevertheless. Hope tells us that the pieces are there for us to put together, if only we will give ourselves to the doing of it. When Jesus dies on the cross, something entirely different rises. And that something is the call to us to make the best in life live again.” – Joan Chittister, The Way of the Cross: The Path to New Life

Apr 2

Ashes to Palms

“When the world caves in
Still my hope will cling
To Your promise
Where my courage ends
Let my heart find strength
In Your presence”― Hillsong

“On this Palm Sunday, time is marked as one small donkey plods toward Jerusalem. One with a face set like flint, feet almost grazing the ground, walks forward toward the eastering of all sorrow—not in the power of horses and swift victory, but in small, steady steps toward the mystery that through suffering, healing comes, that through shame, dignity is restored, that through the cross, powers are disarmed, and death done away with forever. Blessed are all those walking forward into the great, small work they do: in hospitals, homes, grocery stores, classrooms, churches, and cubicles. And blessed are we joining the crowds waving palm branches to shout ourselves hoarse: ‘Hosanna! Save us! Save our world!”— Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie, The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days

A story of sticking, staying, love.
A love beyond comprehension, fathoming, understanding.
Requiring trust, imagination, faith, grace, expansion, mercy, peace.
To die for a good person is big, massive.
To die, suffer excruciatingly, be humiliated, denied, deserted and hated, carrying others sins not your own.
Unbelievable, and true.
That’s love to fall down for, to pause, to kneel, to revere for at least one week.
Can we do that?
That’s what Holy Week invites us to partake in, to participate in, to stop our busy lives for.
To wait in the garden and not fall asleep.
To not accept 30 silver coins to give up a friend.
To not deny your best friend three times, run away, and still become the cornerstone of the church.
Stay awake, accept no bribe, deny nothing.

From Ashes to Palms.
8 days to Easter.
Sacred holy ground.
Walk with reverence.
Watch with rapt attention.
Hope is in reaching distance and demands a lot this week.
Take up a cross to witness The Cross.
Transforming souls still to this day.
Get in line.
No religion. No rules. No regulations.
An invitation to everyone, not just some, self-righteous, rich, church-goers.
All are welcome.

“Easter was when Hope in person surprised the whole world by coming forward from the future into the present.”― N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church