Praying Through Holy Week and COVID-19

Praying throughout Holy Week and COVID-19

In Boston, it is unfortunate timing that the surge in COVID-19 diagnoses happens during Holy Week, and yet it offers us an opportunity to align our plight with the suffering of Jesus. As we keep ourselves physically separated, it can be a time for increased prayer and deeper study of the Passion narratives.

The Passion unfolds for us each day this week. It might be a good practice for us to choose one particular synoptic Gospel Passion narrative to read each day so that we immerse ourselves in the depths of the passages. (We will hear John’s Passion Narrative in its entirety on Friday, and it is more complex.) This will allow us to hear the account of one of the Evangelists so we savor the points he is detailing.

As we pray, we read it slowly and we note the words and phrases that pique our curiosity or have strong feelings attached to them. When this happens, take some time for reflection and then return to that passage and read it again. Let the words sink into your consciousness. The Lord has something to say to you about this passage. When you have some energy about a passage, explain to Jesus what is happening to you as you read it. If you have questions about it, please ask him, even if it is at a crucial time of his suffering.

Each day may bring about a different set of questions. Each day may bring about a new grace. This is the grace I suggest you pray before each passage this week, as it comes from the Passion Week of The Spiritual Exercises: I pray for the grace to have sorrow with Christ in sorrow; for a broken spirit with Christ so broken; tears; and interior suffering because of the great suffering Christ has endured for me.

If you cannot ask for that, ask at least for the desire for that grace.

A by-product of receiving that grace is increased compassion. We want to go through this week by having compassion on Jesus and to be one who consoles him by being silently present to him. He has to go through his suffering; we want to understand how he suffers.

I’m embedding a two excerpts from Jesuit writers about the grace of compassion that is common during the Third Week.

Compassion consists in a certain spiritual empathy, such that the contemplation of the Passion is itself a passion for the one contemplating, a suffering which is ours but in and through which Christ makes us sharers in his own. It can exist only as a mode of intense love. It transforms one’s perception of every meaning of the Passion and the quality of every response to it, and it is the key to the contemplative union-in-action by which through his apostles Christ continues to labor and suffer in the mission of the Church in the world.

Understanding the Spiritual Exercises by Michael Ivens, SJ

Our third week meditations also teach us how difficult acceptance is. When we cannot change a situation, we are tempted to walk away from it. We might literally walk away; we are too busy to sit with a suffering friend. Or we walk away emotionally; we harden ourselves and maintain an emotional distance. We might react to the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ passion and death this way. They describe something terrible and horribly painful, yet we might shield ourselves from the pain. We know the story of the Passion. Ignatius wants us to experience it as something fresh and immediate. We learn to suffer with Jesus, and thus learn to suffer with the people in our lives.

In the end, we learn that Ignatian compassion is essentially our loving presence. There is nothing we can do. There is little we can say. But we can be there.

What Is Ignatian Spirituality? by David L. Fleming, SJ

Dear friends, know that I am praying alongside you. As we practice spiritual communion with the Lord, we do so with one another. I am praying for my increased compassion upon your situation and that the Lord may bless you during this difficult time.

There is one thing I want you to remember: This week is about a celebration. This week is a celebration of God’s abiding presence to us and to Jesus. His heart is touched by the obedience of faith that Jesus proved as his love for us. God wants us to know that God will be there during our trials and struggles. Give never gives up on us. As we move to the vigil, it becomes clear that this is a moment of God’s victory. We hear the stories of how God always protected and remained faithful to us, and that God wants to share his joy with us. This week is one of celebration, even in the midst of pain and anguish.

God will see us through COVID-19. God will see us through our emotional journey through physical distancing. God will deliver us, and we will return soon when we can worship God together.

I look forward to that day.