AN ORDINARY VIEWPOINTAn Occasional Column of Episcopal Comment
by Bishop Fabian W. Bruskewitz S.T.D.

There is no week in the year which is filled with more spiritual riches than the week before Easter, named "holy". It is the time of year when the greatest graces become available to Christians, all of whom are invited and urged to participate in the paschal mystery of Jesus, made visible and truly present for our involvement and happiness in signs, symbols, and sacred rites on Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and, most important of all, at the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday night. The entire week calls all of us to special and extra prayer and devotion, and to a determination despite all obstacles to attend the sacred liturgy in our parish churches, especially during the holy "triduum", the last days of Holy Week.

Pope John Paul II says, "Precisely this week, which humanly speaking is filled to the brim with suffering, humiliation, despoliation, in a word with the "kenosis" ("the emptying") of God
(Philippians 2:7), contains the revelation of God's holiness, the culmination of world history. From the depth of Christ's redemptive humiliation and obedience man is given the gift of strength to reach the summit of his own being and destiny. In this week rightly called holy, the phrase "hosanna in the highest" achieves its full meaning."

HOLY THURSDAY
On the Thursday before Easter, we Catholics are, in the words of the Bishop of Rome, "called together in the first place to repeat in our hearts what the priests do in the liturgy, that is, the gesture which Christ performed at the beginning of the Last Supper." Jesus said, "You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done for you" (John 13:13-15).

The Holy Father then says, "All this reaches its culmination at the Last Supper in the Upper Room in Jerusalem. We are called together to relive this event, the institution of the marvelous Sacrament from which the Church never ceases to draw life, the Sacrament which, at the level of the most authentic and profound reality, constitutes the Church. There is no Eucharist without the Church, but, even before that, there is no Church without the Eucharist...We are called together then to express anew the living memorial of the greatest commandment, the commandment of love: Greater love than this no man has, that a man lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13). Christ's gesture is a living presentation to the Apostles: His hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father...the hour of greatest love....Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end" (John 13:1).

Holy Thursday is also an important day to thank our Savior for instituting the Catholic priesthood, which is intimately linked with His institution of the Holy Eucharist and makes it possible. It is a
special moment to pray for our priests and to appreciate anew their unselfish gift of their lives and themselves to God and to His Church. Finally, it is a time to spend a few quiet moments in thought and prayer before the repository and before the stripped and bare altar, remembering Gethsemene, the betrayal, and the arrest of the Son of God, calling to mind our Lord's command: "Watch and
pray.." (Matthew 26:41).

FRIDAY CALLED GOOD
It is the cross of the Savior which should loom larger than ever on Good Friday in the minds and hearts of us who are Christ's disciples. The Supreme Pontiff tells us, "The cross takes us in spirit to Mount Calvary. With Mary we pause at the feet of the dying Christ. The cross speaks to us of God's mercy. Letting ourselves be captured by this boundless mercy which challenges, transfigures, and saves us is the way to approach in respect and love the drama of the Son of God, Who offers His life for us. May you be able to read in the cross the measure of God's love, a measure without measure. Turn your gaze to the crucified One and accept with awe the message that He, the only One Who has the words of eternal life, is addressing to
you from His cross."

On Good Friday, we hear in the sacred liturgical action the words, "Behold the wood of the cross on which hung the Savior of the world. Come, let us adore." In those words, the Pope tells us, "The Church calls everyone to accept the saving message of the cross of Christ, which is the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:18-25). It is a message which embraces the history of
man on earth, of each and every human being. It embraces the hope of life and the promise of immortality. Silent and abandoned, the crucified One consumes in love the sacrifice of salvation for us. From His Blood flows divine life. In the mystery of His passion, there triumphs the mercy of the Most High."

HOLY WEEK
Each of the days of Holy Week, beginning with Palm Sunday, are special and important for devout Catholics, with the "sacred triduum" being of outstanding significance. Pope John Paul II said that the closing days of Holy Week are "a living memorial of the central events of our faith. Easter is in fact the summit and center of the liturgical year, the solemnity towards which all other feasts
converge. It is the celebration of historic events and extraordinary divine wonders, when Jesus, fulfilling His earthly mission, delivers Himself to His Father in love saying, Father, into Your Hands, I
commend My Spirit (Luke 23:46). The Father accepts Jesus' sacrifice and, raising Him from the dead on the third day, gives believers a new birth to a living hope, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading" (1 Peter 1:3-4).

At the start of Holy Week, Pope John Paul II exhorts us, "As we end our Lenten journey, which we began on Ash Wednesday, we should now prepare ourselves to travel once again with Christ in prayer and by listening to the final phase of our Redeemer's sacrifice in the Sacred Scriptures. The days of Holy Week are the stages of sorrow and solitude in which we relive the mystery of love and forgiveness which has as its goal the triumph of mercy over selfishness and sin."

The Holy See says, "Just as each week has its beginning and climax in the celebration of every Sunday, which always has an Easter character, so the great highlight of the whole liturgical year is the sacred Easter "triduum" of the passion and resurrection of the Lord." Saint Ambrose said, "As Christians we must annually observe both the days of the passion and those of the resurrection, experiencing first days of bitterness and then of joy, fasting on the first days, and feasting and being refreshed on the others."