Inbox Inspiration: Holy Week: April 17, 2019

Holy Week

Dear Friends, 
This is the week that we call Holy and we do this for several reasons.
First, we remember during this week the foundational events of our faith:
the death and resurrection of Christ.
We remember these holy events in the way that Jesus directed at the Last Supper.
Our celebration of the Eucharist, on Holy Thursday and every Sunday and every day, is our way to sacramentally remember the death and resurrection.
We also name this week Holy because we are really remembering the person at the heart of the events.
Our focus is on Jesus, the Christ, who gives of himself completely for us.
We celebrate Him whose resurrection is the hope of Easter.
Finally, we name this week Holy because it calls us to holiness.
The death and resurrection call us to become like the One who dies and rises.
These events call us to be centered on Christ, to be giving of ourselves and our lives, and in that way to become fully alive in Him – to become holy persons.
May each of us experience the powerful potential of this Holy Week.

“We have not so much as a thread that was woven into his garments…We were meant to have more than the relics of Christ. We were meant to have, and are meant to have, Christ Himself. If His garments had been preserved, they would have been relics to draw pilgrims from all over the world, only to kneel in front of them, perhaps to kiss the reliquary that contained them. Christ meant something much more than that for us. Just as when He was stripped of His garments he put on the nakedness of our shame, we were meant by Him to put Him on like a garment, to put on the shape, the purity, of His body; the shape of his labors, of His human nature; His sleeping and eating and journeying, His austerities and His delights in the good and beautiful things of creation.”

From The Way of the Cross by Carol Houselander (1901-1954. English Catholic laywoman, artist, author.)

“The mystery of faith: We proclaim your Death, O Lord, and profess your Resurrection, until you come again.”
Father Michael Schleupner