Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

As you receive this issue of NHEN, we are about to celebrate the holiest week of the liturgical year, culminating in our glorious celebration of the Resurrection on Easter Day.

The great divide among those present on Easter Day is not between the regular churchgoers and the Christmas/Easter attendees, but between those who have prepared for Easter by living in and through Holy Week, and those who have not.

Success in the secular world is appreciated differently – often appreciated more deeply and meaningfully – by those who have had to work for it. I think the same can be said of Easter. The Resurrection is good news for us all – but the difference it makes in our everyday lives depends in large part on how deeply we live with Our Lord through the terrible days of Holy Week, culminating in the Blessed Triduum, the three days of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. I invite you to pray with me through those three days, setting aside our knowledge of how this drama ultimately ends, immersing ourselves in the all-too-human experience of pain and disappointment.

Maundy Thursday is perhaps the place we see Jesus at his most human. It is a miracle that the writers of the Gospels, wanting their readers to believe that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed God, included this most human account of the pain, suffering and doubt, endemic to humankind, that he experienced. On this day in his life, Jesus was to know both the joy of communing with his closest friends and the heartbreak of their betrayal. In the garden, Jesus would come to question his life and purpose, as we all sometimes do. He would pray – desperately – that what he suspected was coming his way would indeed not come to pass. Perhaps he argued with God for a little more time, another chance to get his Good News across to those who needed to hear it. Perhaps he bargained with God, as we often do, to reward his good behavior with less pain in his life. But it was not to be, and in the end, he prays that God’s will be done, whatever it is. Then, not only would Judas, perhaps the most trusted of the disciples, betray him with a kiss, but the rest would run away and pretend not to know him. It doesn’t take much of an imagination to guess Jesus’ profound sadness and heartbreak.

Then through the Good Friday night, the “trial” by a rump court. Some of the Gospels say he “uttered not a word” in defense of the charges made against him. I never understood that, until so much hatred and venom came my way in my own life. And then I understood – sometimes, the only way to end the hatred and stop the violence, is to let it end with ME. The temptation to return hatred for hatred is so strong, the only way to “win” is not to play that game or let the hatred continue. Hanging on the cross, he experienced (or so it seems) that “dark night of the soul” when God seems to be unmindful or even absent. Is there any human being alive (even ones of great faith) who hasn’t wondered at God’s seeming absence in our most trying times? And the miracle of what Jesus accomplishes on the cross is his act of faith in committing his life and offering his soul to God ANYWAY.

Holy Saturday is a time to focus on the disciples themselves, in the wake of that TERRIBLE Friday. (It had not yet become “Good.”) They realized they had been wrong. This beloved friend and mentor had not been the Messiah after all. Their hopes for him, and for themselves, had been dashed. And now, all there was to do was to go home to their families, admit that they had been duped by this itinerant preacher and get back to their “normal” lives. Embarrassment, shame and humility were to be their lot. And a profound disappointment that what they thought they had experienced with this holy man of Nazareth was in fact not trustworthy or true. He had loved them and treated them in way they had never before known, and they had loved him back. But now, it was over and done with. And the only thing to do was go home, admit their embarrassing and misguided mistake, and get on with their lives.

And then, Easter morning.

Easter is a joyous day for all who follow Christ, and everyone is welcome to our celebrations of the Day of the Resurrection. But those who will benefit most from that celebration are those who will have taken the time to contemplate the sad and painful events that precede it. Our liturgical remembrances of those events – the foot washing and institution of the Eucharist, followed by the pain in the Garden of Gethsemane, remembered on Maundy Thursday, and the painful watch at the foot of the Cross on Good Friday – are wonderful ways to immerse ourselves in those painful events. The empty (What-do-we-do-now?!) feeling of Holy Saturday is a good time to wonder what our lives would BE without a Savior.

Only with this preparation, this participation in the Passion of Our Lord, can our Easter celebration be full and deep. My prayer is that all of us may find the grace (and make the time) to prepare for a glorious Easter.

+Gene