Holy Week and Work
(Originally posted April 18, 2011)
It's Holy Week. So much to do. Meanwhile, the demands of work continue.
There was one week in my entire working life when I had off Holy Week. I was switching jobs and wasn't starting my new position until Easter Monday, but had some vacation "owed" to me by my previous employer. I didn't plan things that way, but it just kind of worked out. I still remember how different things were.
There was no "rushed" or "pressed" feeling. I was able to attend all the Holy Week services with my family, and got to all on time. So different than years where I had to work on Good Friday, or was late to Holy Thursday Mass, or...well, if you're busy at work during Holy Week, you may know what I'm talking about.
But that one week's respite is now safely ensconced in the past - just a pleasant memory. For this Holy Week, work presses, as usual, although - Deo Gratias - I know I can make all the liturgies we'll have in our parish: Holy Thursday Mass, Good Friday services, Easter Sunday Mass.
(Will you) find the time to attend the great, moving liturgies of Holy Week? (Will you) find the time to meditate on just what Our Lord did for us - and does for us - in His Passion, Death and Resurrection? Really, find the time to think about all this. It's the most important thing you can possibly do this week.
...I...want to share one quick thought I had this Lent. It came to me after a "Christmas" meditation. Yes, I know. It's Lent. What am I doing thinking about Christmas? Well, I read something this past year about how there's no reason we have to only think about the Incarnation - that most important event in the history of the world - only at Christmas. So I took the advice to heart and from time to time I think about Christmas.
This particular time, it struck me, as I gazed on a stained glass window depicting the Nativity at a local church, that the innocent Babe in the manger would, in the short space of thirty-something years, wind up as the crucified Christ - just a few stained glass windows away. Just like we're all born and die, so it was for Our Lord. Just Him going through that - just living in this weary world of ours - for our sakes really should be enough for us to be eternally grateful and live our lives as best we can. Imagine God humbling Himself like that - just so that we could learn by example how to live our lives in a way that would make us really happy...really happy, as opposed to the pleasure-seeking, self-centered lives many of us lead, thinking we'll be happy like that.
But, of course, then He goes and suffers and dies for us. And His suffering is the worst, most painful suffering ever (it really was), never mind Him - the most perfectly innocent victim ever - dying in the horrible, abandoned, humiliating manner He died.
And - to top it all off - He rises from the dead. He Himself makes it crystal clear that an eternity of joy and happiness is our real destiny.
So looking at the Child in the Manger, the innocence and beauty of his face, and knowing what awaits this most innocent and pure Child thirty-something years later, I'm mortified by my laziness, my short-comings, never mind my sins. Imagining these purposeful failures, all in spite of knowing Our Lord practically from my birth (being raised in a Catholic home)! Shame on me.
I'm hoping that this Holy Week some extra grace seeps in and straightens me out yet a little more so that this meditation really does shape my life and lead me to where I belong each day - standing next to Christ, no matter what challenges or suffering the day may bring.
Maybe I'll get it this time.
And a Blessed grace-filled Holy Week to you.
It's Holy Week. So much to do. Meanwhile, the demands of work continue.
There was one week in my entire working life when I had off Holy Week. I was switching jobs and wasn't starting my new position until Easter Monday, but had some vacation "owed" to me by my previous employer. I didn't plan things that way, but it just kind of worked out. I still remember how different things were.
There was no "rushed" or "pressed" feeling. I was able to attend all the Holy Week services with my family, and got to all on time. So different than years where I had to work on Good Friday, or was late to Holy Thursday Mass, or...well, if you're busy at work during Holy Week, you may know what I'm talking about.
But that one week's respite is now safely ensconced in the past - just a pleasant memory. For this Holy Week, work presses, as usual, although - Deo Gratias - I know I can make all the liturgies we'll have in our parish: Holy Thursday Mass, Good Friday services, Easter Sunday Mass.
(Will you) find the time to attend the great, moving liturgies of Holy Week? (Will you) find the time to meditate on just what Our Lord did for us - and does for us - in His Passion, Death and Resurrection? Really, find the time to think about all this. It's the most important thing you can possibly do this week.
...I...want to share one quick thought I had this Lent. It came to me after a "Christmas" meditation. Yes, I know. It's Lent. What am I doing thinking about Christmas? Well, I read something this past year about how there's no reason we have to only think about the Incarnation - that most important event in the history of the world - only at Christmas. So I took the advice to heart and from time to time I think about Christmas.
This particular time, it struck me, as I gazed on a stained glass window depicting the Nativity at a local church, that the innocent Babe in the manger would, in the short space of thirty-something years, wind up as the crucified Christ - just a few stained glass windows away. Just like we're all born and die, so it was for Our Lord. Just Him going through that - just living in this weary world of ours - for our sakes really should be enough for us to be eternally grateful and live our lives as best we can. Imagine God humbling Himself like that - just so that we could learn by example how to live our lives in a way that would make us really happy...really happy, as opposed to the pleasure-seeking, self-centered lives many of us lead, thinking we'll be happy like that.
But, of course, then He goes and suffers and dies for us. And His suffering is the worst, most painful suffering ever (it really was), never mind Him - the most perfectly innocent victim ever - dying in the horrible, abandoned, humiliating manner He died.
And - to top it all off - He rises from the dead. He Himself makes it crystal clear that an eternity of joy and happiness is our real destiny.
So looking at the Child in the Manger, the innocence and beauty of his face, and knowing what awaits this most innocent and pure Child thirty-something years later, I'm mortified by my laziness, my short-comings, never mind my sins. Imagining these purposeful failures, all in spite of knowing Our Lord practically from my birth (being raised in a Catholic home)! Shame on me.
I'm hoping that this Holy Week some extra grace seeps in and straightens me out yet a little more so that this meditation really does shape my life and lead me to where I belong each day - standing next to Christ, no matter what challenges or suffering the day may bring.
Maybe I'll get it this time.
And a Blessed grace-filled Holy Week to you.
Comments