Entering Holy Week

Chanting the Passion Gospel today at St. Edward's.

Dear Friends and Family,

My heart is singing to be entering Holy Week--the most grace-filled week of the year! My body is just barely singing, having almost lost my voice today, but it is still singing as well! A virus that is making the rounds of Cornwall has given me a rather nasty cough. The doctor said it should leave on about Easter Sunday. In the meantime, it will likely give me a slightly less active and more contemplative Holy Week, which I don't mind.

Indeed, the events of Holy Week are such that it always seems to me that the only adequate way to live them is in an atmosphere of silence. I always feel a bit sorry for those who can only come and go from a few parish services, but who otherwise need to maintain their busy schedules in the midst of the world. I've been very blessed to have quiet Holy Weeks for many years now--often weeks quite full of activity and apostolate, but an apostolate that is surrounded by silence. I thank God for the blessed silence of Lanherne, a silence I will enter into in a few moments during an evening Holy Hour.

Right before entering Holy Week the Church always gives us--in the traditional Liturgy--a special feast of Our Lady. The last Friday before Holy Week is always the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. It's as if the Church wished to call out to us, "Do you feel unprepared for Holy Week? Do you feel that your Lent has not been all that it should have been? Do you feel tired or weak? Then turn to your Heavenly Mother. God offers you His own Mother to guide you and carry you this week."

And this year, the Church seemed to cry out all the louder. Because not only did she offer us on Friday the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, on Saturday she offered us the Feast of St. Gabriel (March 24th every year), and then today (March 25th) is the traditional feast of the Annunciation. Of course Palm Sunday took precedence and the Annunciation will be celebrated April 9th--a special post-Easter treat--but I couldn't help but think of Our Lady more on this 25th of March. So for three days in a row our attention has been drawn to the Immaculate Virgin, to She who can help us better than any other, who can teach us better than any other, how to draw near to Her Son during Holy Week.

May you open your heart to Her motherly presence and receive all that She has in store for you these next seven days. You will be in my heart and in my prayers as I live the sacred mysteries of this week.

In Cordibus Iesu et Mariae,
Fr. Pillari