After we pass thorough Holy Week the Church shares its ultimate triumph and has done so for over two thousand years. We celebrate Easter with community, family, friends, great joy, communal meals, and tradition. Some of us attend the Tridiuum liturgies and others do not. We look to that week as a period of time leading up to the mega-celebration. In spiritual realms, though, the celebration at the end of the week is only a part of the entire picture.
Holy Week reminds us, painfully, to trace Jesus’ betrayal, arrest, imprisonment, trial, and death. It is good to be reminded of the price that was paid for our ultimate well-being. There are things in that, though, that have potent lessons for us beside the horror of it all.
Holy Week was Jesus’ ultimate encounter with the Father and his choice to express his love or simply walk away from the struggle. It begins with the agony in the garden and his abandonment by his dearest friends, continues with his torture and his carrying the cross, and ends with his death.
Jesus’ level of stress in the garden was so much so that he sweated blood. It’s easy enough to become comfortable with the idea that each of us personally will never have that much responsibility, responsibility for all of mankind. The idea of sweating blood and encountering the Father for a cause becomes a kind of occurrence that is “over there” and something that we don’t have to think about. Have you missed the most obvious lesson of that encounter and the rest of those three days?
In the truth of the struggle, Jesus’ experience of those days is very relevant to the way you and I will ultimately meet God. Despite the fact that Jesus had a Mother he dearly loved, twelve friends loyal to him, and thousands of followers, his experience during these days was utterly and completely alone, solo.
That message is strong for each of us. You can’t meet, reconcile with or be accountable to the Father with anyone else’s help. God wants to look you in the eye with no distractions.
It is easy to have an “experience” of God in the middle of an adoring crowd that is overflowing with praise. It’s easy to pray surrounded with like-minded believers. It is easy to experience “conversion” in the middle of others who are having the same experience. None of these are bad experiences. As a matter of fact, the community is most likely what will enable you to get to know Jesus better, lift you up when all seems lost, and teach you to grow in faith.
But in the final stroke, each of us will come to a place where we meet with God and no one else will be present. It will be the most important meeting of our “eternal lives.” If you had to do that right this minute are you ready? Tomorrow is not promised to any of us.
This puts a different light on some of the things that are recommended spiritual practices.
- Do you have a regular time of silence that you spend with the Lord?
- Is your prayer discipline regular?
- Do you spend time at adoration?
- Do you ever pray, meet, and dialogue with God without reciting rote prayers?
- Do you ever spend time in prayer with no time line and no intent to rush off to something else?
All of these disciplines are “learned skills” that you get better at the more you do them. During this Holy Week, take advantage of the solemn and silent days of the Church and add these skills to your regular routine. You might call it “training for eternity.”
Copyright © 2013, Kathryn M. Cunningham
Kathryn M. Cunningham
Kathryn holds a Master’s in Education from Saint Xavier University. Most recently she completed Master of Arts in Pastoral Studies from The Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. This recent degree was part of a “retirement project” after teaching for 35 years. She has also worked as a spiritual director, music minister,council member and prayer team warrior. Kathryn has a deep interest in catechesis for the people in the pews. As a “sort of” convert she finds the wisdom of the Church a source for encouragement, joy and survival in a world not sure of anything. Her writing has appeared in diocesan publications and on-line sites, most recently for Zenit. To learn more about Kathryn check out her thinking at: www.atravelersview.org">ATravelersView.org.
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