Holy Week Triduum

The Holy Week Triduum is upon us and I am pressed by the questions Ignatius of Loyola invites retreatants to consider in the First Week of the Spiritual Exercises: What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What shall I do for Christ? We ponder these questions as we look out into God’s sweeping vision for the world and recognize all the many gifts we have been given by God – at the personal cost to God himself. Some gifts we have squandered; others we have used well. As we look at God’s most prized creation, Jesus, the man from Nazareth, we stand in awe before him and place our questions to him in admiration as he hangs upon the cross. He has lived a good life. He taught us well. Sure, he caused the religious leaders to become angry, but it was because they were so blindsided by their interpretation of God’s will that they were unwilling to change. Jesus came to proclaim that the kingdom of God is upon us and everything that he did showed evidence of it. And what did we do? We condemned him to death – an excruciating and humiliating death. The charge was blasphemy, but his fidelity to his mission and to God proved that charge wrong.

As Holy Week events unfold over the next few days in real time, I pause in silence and take stock of my relationship with Christ to see how I have lived or not lived up to the life to which he has called me. I think of the ways in which I have nursed or held onto anger unnecessarily – failing to love my brother or sister in light of the merciful way I am continuously forgiven by God. How many times have I seen the hurt in another and not stayed longer to just be with him or her? Too many. I ponder how well my love keeps moving outward towards others and I see the ways I remain deficient because I hold onto hurts and memories far too long. Have I resolved or clarified awkward moments with my family of origin? Not effectively well, but I realize I begin to lose when I fail to try. Does my care and affection for my Jesuit brothers become more generous? I have to keep relearning how to do this through every new interaction with them. The fact is that I hold onto too many things and I have to learn to give them to Jesus this week as he picks up his cross for me personally. I have to pile onto his shoulders all those burdens that weigh me down, and gosh, it is very difficult to do. I have become rather attached to those weights. I pray for the grace to hand them over to Jesus or to at least not resist too much when he tries to take them from me and place them crushingly on his cross. Do I deserve his love and care? No, but I am so grateful that he does this for me. Day after day after day.

Do I look forward to Holy Week? I answer with a quiet yes. I do not want to see him go through these horrific events once more and I know the events come alive freshly each year, but I know that in some way he makes sense of my inner story and that I need him to die for me - lifeless on the cross, deposed and placed in the tomb, with all my sins and failings alongside him. I do grieve my loss and I often wonder how to interpret joy when it comes around to the resurrection. Joy is a word seldom used and I don’t think it is well understood, but I see it as a sense of completeness, that all has been restored, that all is in right order once again. Who doesn’t want that? Is joy tip-toe happiness? Or an exuberant feeling of elation? For me, joy is a sober, ever-expanding, heart-gladdening awareness of who I am in relation to my Creator and God as I contemplate what the Trinitarian God has done for me. This is why I must ponder the questions, “What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What shall I do for Christ?”

What story do you bring with you into the week?