A Special Time with Pastor Carlos

A Special Time

We have begun the holiest of weeks: Palm Sunday today, and in a couple of days, the Holy Triduum or Holy Three days of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil.

There are a lot of words in today’s liturgy. We begin recalling how Jesus approaches the slopes of the Mount of Olives riding on a colt, and how the multitudes “began to praise God aloud with joy for all the mighty deeds they had seen” in and through Jesus. They even spread their cloaks on the path before him.

However, the liturgy quickly turns from the joyful cheering of the crowds to the suffering servant in the first reading, who says “I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; my face I did not shield from buffets and spitting’ (Is 50:6).

Then St Paul reflects on this mystery of the suffering Christ: “though he was in the form of God, [Christ Jesus] did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself...he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

Then the Gospel of Luke takes us from the Last Supper to the Lord’s passion and death.

Christ avails to us the mystery of His death and resurrection at every Mass, but we have a unique opportunity every year to celebrate in a special and (hopefully) more intentional way during these holy days. As we praise God and thank Him for His mercy, let us pray for the grace to empty ourselves so we may be filled by God’s transforming love.

God Bless, Fr. Carlos, OSA.

Sunday, April 14, 2019 — Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord