The period from Maundy Thursday to Easter Sunday is called the Easter Triduum. It is seamless. One event builds on the next. Holy Thursday and Good Friday truly realise the inseparable continuity that exists between the Passion and the Resurrection. Christ's death carries in itself the seed of the Resurrection. It will by itself guide us to the highest point of the Triduum and the highest point of the Christian way of life is reached on Sunday with the celebration of Easter.
Let me share some random thoughts and reflections.
The Pope on Palm Sunday
On Palm Sunday, April 5, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI said that daily self-sacrifice in imitation of Christ is the key to the Christian life. "Sacrifice and renunciation belong to the just life. Whoever promises a life without this continuing gift of self is fooling the people."
In his homily, Pope Benedict commented on Jesus' words after his entry into Jerusalem: "Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life."
What Christ says flies in the face of the current belief in self and instant gratification. Christ’s message is clearly that the person who wants to live only for himself and exploit all life's possibilities for personal gain finds that life itself becomes boring and empty because it becomes senseless.
The Pope explained that the principle of love, which is at the heart of the Christian faith and is exemplified in Christ's crucifixion, demands a more universal vision that looks outward and not just inward. This orientation towards others involves not only a "single great decision" in a person's life, which is relatively easy, the Pope said, but must be a continuing attitude implemented daily in everyday situations.
"No successful life exists without sacrifice”, the Pope said.
Living life to the full
The experience of the Holy Week should help us live life to the full, as it should help us anchor our life in Christ who died for each man and each woman. The face of the crucified Christ does not inspire fear, but communicates only love and mercy. Let us take some time off during this Easter Triduum to meditate on the face of the Crucified Christ and see how sentiments of profound gratitude rise up spontaneously in our being.
On Holy Thursday, Christians commemorate and re-live the setting up of the institution of the priesthood as a gift and mystery of love. The institution of the Eucharist as the sacrament of God's infinite love for humanity is enacted. Christ proposes for us a new model of managing authority. He washed the feet of the disciples and ordered us to do the same. Service is henceforth the new name of authority.
On Good Friday during the celebration of the liturgy and the reading of the narration of the Passion, the Church invites believers to venerate the Cross as the extraordinary symbol of divine mercy. We should treasure every word proclaimed to us from the Gospel of St John. Then, in silence, we participate in the procession leading to the adoration of the Cross. The external silence should be accompanied by our reflections on the best way to translate God’s love for us as love for our neighbours.
On Good Friday, we Christians look at the cross through Jesus' cry before he died: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Many times, we feel the silence of God in our lives and thus this cry of Jesus becomes our 'own' cry in such difficult situations of life. In such moments of loneliness and distress, which are frequent in our life, the exclamation, 'The Lord has abandoned me!' might surge from our hearts to our mouths. In such circumstances we can unite our feelings to that of Christ crucified and feeling abandoned so that we can change this cry of anguish into a cry of hope.
A life programme
As believers we should look at the Crucifix as the only way that gives meaning to human existence. It is the way of total acceptance of the Will of God, and of generous giving of ourselves to our brothers and sisters.
The Church exhorts us to live Holy Saturday as the day of the great silence. This silence will be broken during the Easter Vigil when we joyfully proclaim Easter and celebrate Jesus' triumph over death, flooding our hearts and minds with joy.
Easter, understood in this perspective, stops being a commemoration of the past but becomes a commitment and a life programme.
Easter cannot be understood if it is divorced from the passion and death of Jesus Christ. Those who do not look at the Cross as the eloquent symbol of the love of God for humanity cannot fathom the depth of the Easter mystery.
Christ is alive
Let me conclude with a short quotation from Pope Benedict’s inauguration homily, April 2005. The Pope had said:
“The church is young. She holds within herself the future of the world and therefore shows each of us the way toward the future. The church is alive and we are seeing it: We are experiencing the joy that the risen Lord promised his followers. The church is alive -- she is alive because Christ is alive, because he is truly risen.”
Happy Easter to all my readers.