How to Do Holy Week

Holy Week is a solemn week of extra prayer and fasting. It involves the Triduum: Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil. During those three days we recall—and through our prayer participate in—Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples, his arrest, trial, and execution, the long day of silence (Holy Saturday) while his body rested in the grave, and his Resurrection on Easter. The many readings of Scripture surrounding the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ give us a lot of material for reflection and prayer.
Unfortunately, the rest of the world does not stop or slow down to give us extra time for all this liturgy and church attendance. How to “do” Holy Week, especially if we will not be participating in all the special church liturgies at this time?
Here are just a few suggestions. I hope you’re helped by at least one or two of them.

• Spend a little time each day listening to music that helps you slow down. It doesn’t matter what kind of music—hymns, jazz, folksong, symphony pieces, songs with meaningful words, or pieces that are instrumental only—as long as the listening helps you breathe more slowly and go to a place deeper in your spirit.
• Prepare at least one meal with special care for the people in your home (or, if you live alone, for you and a guest or two), and make certain all of you sit down together to eat it. Today, I did some “butter sculpting” and carved an “Easter Lamb” for our traditional Polish breakfast on Easter morning. Now I need a recipe for “plazak."
• Choose one of the Passion narratives—from any of the four Gospels—and read it aloud to yourself over the course of the week. Don’t try to learn anything new or have a profound experience; simply read the story, asking God to help this story live in you better this year than it ever has before.
• While you’re sitting—maybe at the end of the day, trying to unwind in front of the IPad or in a favorite chair—try drawing aspects of Holy Week. Use whatever paper and pen(cil) is available and express something about symbols that are meaningful to you: cross, lily, bread, chalice, table, garden, hands, faces, a road…

Finally, you are invited to attend your parish Holy Week services. The choir members are rehearsing, the sacristans are designing the floral sanctuary and poor father is racking his brain to come up with a “profound Easter message” that will make people glad they came to Easter services. Wherever you are, you can go on a spiritual pilgrimage with Jesus.

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends that as we journey with Jesus in our moments of darkness He will take us by the hand and lift us all to the Light of His Resurrection.