Holy Week, 2018 - Living Inside the Mystery

Holy Week has long been important to me. Holy Thursday, with the solemn evening Mass, the washing of the feet, the transfer of the Eucharist. Good Friday, the only day of the year when no Mass is said, no consecration takes place. Holy Saturday, and the beautiful Vigil service, begun in darkness, the fire lit, the lighting of the Easter Candle. Easter is not just a day, but the culmination of the Triduum, the reenactment of the birth of the Church, and the death and resurrection of Christ.

Yet the past few years, Holy Week has also been marked by other events. 2013, when Nick was so sick, I wasn’t sure he would make it through the day. 2014, when he was able to go to Holy Thursday Mass and Good Friday services, but sat out the long Vigil Mass. 2015, when he was beginning to slip away, in such small steps that I didn’t see it at first.

2016, two years ago, it was my first Holy Week without Nick, and I stumbled my way through Holy Week without him at my side. 2017 was my first Holy Week after finding out Linda was really my sister, and I spent Holy Week with an extended family I hadn’t known I had.

This year, 2018, it is again a different Holy Week. I’m 1,200 miles from where home was, in this strange new world of South Florida, where “cold” means it’s under 70 degrees, and “snow” has no meaning in the weather lexicon. Yet, I am strangely also home. I am at Our Lady of Florida Spiritual Center. While it is very different that Bishop Malloy Retreat House in Jamaica, Queens, where Nick and I were accustomed to attending retreats, it is also very much the same. They are both operated by the Passionists of St. Paul of the Cross Province, and so have similar programs. Not only that, but head of the retreat house, Very Rev Paul Wierichs, C.P, is, in a sense, an old friend, having been at Bishop Malloy during the same time period we went there. In fact, at dinner today, we had a nice chat about Passionists I knew from Bishop Malloy, and also from St. Ann's Shrine Basilica, where Father Wierichs served during the same time period we lived in the Poconos. (Special shout out to Bishop Kopacz, who Father Wierichs spoke very highly of, and of course I totally agreed!)

And then today, Holy Thursday, I read the second reading, a reading from St. Paul (1 Corinthians 11:23-26). A short reading, yes, but one I heard Nick read so many times, and I may have even channeled him when I read it.

Living inside the mystery. The mystery of the Incarnation, at Christmas, is only the beginning of the story. We are an Easter people. Without the resurrection, where is our religion? We preach Christ crucified (1 Corinthians 1:23), and Christ risen from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).

And I believe in the resurrection of the body, and that we may live forever with Christ in the world yet to come.

Blessed Holy Week. Happy Easter. Christos Anesti! May we all live with the Beatific Vision as our ultimate goal.