Holy Week and Triduum

Here we are. After nearly 40 days of Lent, after making resolutions, after sometimes failing to keep them, we've come upon the time that we've eagerly been preparing for. In just over 24 hours, the holiest days of the Christian year will be upon us. Three days, the Triduum, to commemorate the mystery of our salvation, the mystery of God's love for us even in our sinfulness. His humility, His mercy, His willingness to bring us out of ourselves and closer to Him - all of these beautiful qualities of God will be on display through the Scripture and Liturgies of the next few days.

It'll fly by. It always goes far too fast. It seems like you just walked into the church on Thursday night for the Mass of Our Lord's Supper when you walk into it again on Sunday for the Mass of Our Lord's Resurrection. Even these days of desert preparation, interrupted by feast days giving witness to the uncontainable nature of Christian joy, fly by. But Holy Week especially goes far too fast. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday... there is a quiet that settles over everything. We feel it in our activity, in the liturgy: something big is about to happen. I'm sure the apostles felt it as well when they were with Our Lord in Jerusalem that week. "Where is He going, what will He do?" How they must have been eager to see what the Lord's mission truly was.

But when the mission, when his "hour", came, they scattered. The very thing they were eager to see they fled from, because they had envisioned something far different. They did not expect the suffering He was to undergo. They did not imagine the sacrifices that might be asked of them. Their action spoke louder than words, "Lord, I will love you like this, not like that." They limited God's love, confining it to their human understanding. Only a few like Mary and John accepted whatever the Lord would give. They were docile to His love, they said "Lord, love me as you wish, and I will love you in return."

This Triduum, though it is set to go by so quickly, we too must be docile like this. Some of us will be given amazing Triduum's. We will go to Church each day filled with enthusiasm. We will feel the deepest sorrow on Good Friday and the greatest joy on Easter Sunday. If this happens to us then we must rejoice, for this is how God has chosen to love us. On the other hand, some of us will go to Church each day searching for God. We will be distracted, tired, grumpy from fasting. We'll try to concentrate and we won't be able to. We'll wake up on Easter morning and feel like we've wasted the Triduum, and now we have to wait a year to do it again. Rejoice, for this is how God has chosen to love us!

God does not ask us to be in a certain emotional state during this time. To a large extent, He will determine what we feel when presented with this mysteries. What we're called to do, what we're always called to do, is to respond to however He shows His love for us by loving Him in return. This Triduum, if we really want to get the most out of these three days, we must accept and give the most. We need to accept God's love for us in whatever way He shows it to us. In turn, we must love Him and be faithful to Him in all the little activities of our lives.

Holy Week, the Triduum. We are in the midst of times that ought to change our lives. The mystery of the Cross and Resurrection should teach us that God does love us, even if it's not how we'd expect Him to. Indeed, how He chooses to love us is often far greater than what we could expect. Who could have expected the true magnitude of the Crucifixion? Who could have guessed at the true glory of the Resurrection? Jesus always pours out His love for us in new and unexpected ways. And over the next few days, we will have the chance to experience that anew, again, for our selves. These can be days that change our lives, but we must let them. We must let Him.