Greetings from Fr. Bob: Holy Week is Coming

Greetings from Father Bob ...
We are fast approaching Holy Week. It’s strange that we call it that because it was seven days of political corruption, moral cowardice, religious hypocrisy and physical violence, and we have named this week “holy.” We Christians have a strange vocabulary.

This is the holiest time for our Church. This is the center of our faith. This is the time we focus our attention on the self-giving love of Jesus Christ. No other celebration in the Church, not even Christmas, matches the importance of the days of Holy Week. It is because of Jesus’ death and resurrection that His followers first started to tell stories about His birth. Without the resurrection, His death would have been the end of the story, His followers would have scattered, gone home, done their own thing. His birth would have been lost in the crowds of Bethlehem, His life would have been forgotten.

Holy Week tells us a different story: His life is remembered! On the night before He dies Jesus looks ahead to tomorrow’s final act of self-giving on the cross, and He leaves us with His greatest gift, His very self, in the form of bread and wine. He knew what was facing Him the next day. He was aware He would die. This was His last supper with His friends.

Jesus does something unbelievable. He takes a towel and basin of water and washes the feet of His disciples, one by one, kneeling before them on the hard stone floor. No words could have driven home more clearly the fact that Jesus called His followers to a life of service. And He told them, if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s, for I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you.

In other words, if I who am God your Creator, your Redeemer, can care for you enough to wash your feet, why can’t you wash each other’s feet, care for one another? Care for each other right here and now? All around us are people with problems, probably just about every human problem in the book. Many are hurting in some way: hurting because of illness, because of old age. Hurting because I am unloved or worse, because I think I am unlovable. Hurting because I have hurt so many.

Do not think for a moment you are unique and alone on a cross: we all hurt because we are men and women fashioned of fragile flesh and sensitive spirit all needing to be loved.

When we come together, when we share this Eucharist, we become united with Christ and united with each other. We become what we receive: the Body of Christ. When you share the Body of Christ, there are no strangers, only other Christ’s with their own wounds, their own needs.

Whatever your problems are, because you share the Body of Christ with countless thousands all over the world, you are one with them. More immediately, one with those around you, one with your family, your friends. At least be concerned about them, at least offer words of encouragement to those who may be worse off than yourself. Every small act of kindness and compassion spreads the message of service. In receiving the Body of Christ, you receive His life, and that life binds all of you together in one Body of Christ.

Yours in Christ, Father Bob Warren, SA