And now to Holy Week...

Holy Week is a few short hours away and the most glorious night of the world awaits.

For a week the hearts of the faithful and even of some of the faithless will be touched by the drama as it unfolds. We will walk in sign and symbol, liturgy and sacrament, with Jesus towards the cross and empty tomb; a global event, a movement of the hearts of people expressed in rituals that cross the centuries expressed in a chorus of human languages. And yet each one who observes this week is touched in their own unique way. The sights, the smells, the words, and the swirl of events express both the way this Jesus has touched the world and the souls of those who encounter him.

Into this sacred intensity the faithful now begin to draw in body and soul, heart and intellect. For a small moment we who can appreciate it see time in some sense suspended and the long ago made present. We are here but not here, there but present in the world we know. In a profound way the upper room, the garden, the betrayal, and the suffering reach out from their place in history and join our brief moments.

In the end there is Pascha, late into the evening, moving towards the dawn. We stand in sacred vigil and share in holy light. All that has come before is part of us now and the future is as well.
Because in the hope of that glorious night we see ourselves one day freed from death and everything becomes different, holy, and new.