Yesterday was Palm Sunday, a prelude to the most solemn week of the year—Holy Week—in which the salvific events of the Lord’s Passion, Death and Resurrection will play out in the Liturgies of the Triduum in Word, ritual, gesture, sign and symbol with unparalleled force and power.
Some of us will attend those Liturgies with an easy familiarity that verges on the routine. We might even ask: “I wonder what they’re going to do new this year?” Others will passively observe the unfolding of the Ancient Rites as if spectators at a theatrical production. Others will endure another struggle to find parking, seating, and then the rush to clear the parking lot. “This is the week we ought to be paying rent, Father,” one of my parishioners once quipped. “We’re spending so much time in Church!”
Consider this: There are those in virtually every parish Assembly for whom this is all new, something never before witnessed or experienced – something deeply personal and touching. These are the Elect, who have journeyed for weeks or months through the Order of Christian Initiation that will culminate in their Baptism, Confirmation, and taking their place with us at the Table of the Lord at the Easter Vigil.
Imagine what they are thinking, what they are feeling. Put yourself in their place. What would it be like to sit in the Assembly's front row, seeing feet being washed on Holy Thursday? How would you feel to approach the Cross to reverently, tenderly touch or kiss it on Good Friday? To see the New Fire, the procession of flickering candles, the intoning of the Exultat, and to sit through the recounting of Salvation History in the Vigil’s Liturgy of the Word? To witness the blessing of the Font and approach that Font to be immersed in its saving water? To whisper “Amen” for the first time in receiving the Sacred Food and Drink from the Altar of Sacrifice.
Perhaps if we could allow ourselves to participate in the Triduum from their perspective, we might enable the salvific power of the Triduum’s grace to be given to us in ways not experienced before.
May God grant that this Holy Week be one of grace “pressed down, shaken together, and flowing over” (Lk. 6/38) for you and for all!