Phew!

I am sure every Catholic pastor loves Holy Week: confessions, the Chrism Mass, the services of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, the Easter Vigil, and the cast of thousands on Easter Sunday. But I am also sure every pastor loves a bit of down time in the week after Easter. So, I say, phew!

The beauty of Holy Week, the Triduum and Easter is that the expanse of our Catholic faith is dynamically entered into liturgically within a few short days.  Even if one were a cloistered monk with little experience of being with thousands, the liturgical events from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday are thrilling and exhausting at the same time. To grasp the scope of what our Savior has done for us, to come face to face with the humility of Christ's self-emptying on the cross, to enter into these events has more meaning and becomes more profound every year. Each year the meaning of the Eucharist, the power of the cross, and significance of the Easter Vigil with the joy of the Resurrection take on an ever greater importance.  Words fail in describing the reality we express liturgically. I'm 61 and I am only beginning to understand the length and breadth and height and depth of God's love for us.