The readings are provided above. I will make no commentary on these. I urge you to read them. Again and again. Soak them up. You will find below a meditation or poem

COLLECT

Holy Monday
Grant, we ask you, Almighty God, the grace of restoration through the merits of Jesus' Passion and Death. Today we remember the great gift of gratitude, given courageously, by Mary when she anointed our Lord with the costly oil whose perfume filled the house. May the perfume of her deed fill our hearts with praise. We ask this through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord. Amen

Holy Tuesday
Almighty and everlasting God, we wish to see Jesus. Grant us the grace of humility during this Passion time so that we may indeed, like a grain of wheat falling into the soil, die to ourselves and thus obtain pardon of our sins. We ask this through the same Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord. Amen

Holy Wednesday
We call ourselves Your friends yet one among us who ate at table with You betrayed You. We know that we often fail You. Transform us through Your Passion and the sufferings we merit to choose to bear for Your sake so that we may help reveal Your Glory at the appointed time. This we ask through Jesus our Lord, Your Son. Amen

Maundy Thursday - Holy Thursday
O Lord God, this night Your Son instituted for us the great sacrament of His Body and Blood in the Eucharistic meal. In this way, on the night before he was to die, He chose to reveal His deep love for us and to provide for us communion in Him. We remember that He said, "This is my body... meat indeed. This is my blood... drink indeed..... He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in Me and I in him." May we who celebrate this eucharist find fulness of love and continue to show the fruits of redemption in our lives. We ask through Jesus Christ our Lord who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen

Good Friday - God's Friday
Merciful and everlasting God, behold your family spread before You. We don't know why but, for us, Jesus was willing to be obedient to You, to go to the Cross prepared for Him and to die there. He bore our sins in His own body and they were nailed with Him to the Cross. You spared Him not, Lord. Help us to deeply know within us what it is that Jesus has done for us. Help us to remember it always and to so make His Passion a part of us that we will live the redemption we are given without fear of the adversary. We ask this through Jesus Christ, Your Son. Amen

Holy Saturday - Easter Vigil
The shadows steal across the sky as darkness falls and hails with the stars' rising the beginning of this awesome Holy Day of Easter. As we kindle the fire of new light to accompany us on the journey into new life with our Risen Saviour, preserve us from sin and renew us holy in body and soul to love and serve You all our days, through Your only bgotten Son, Jesus Christ. Amem

THOUGHTS

I must confess to one and all that I found myself unable to speak to the texts this week; unable to address them; unable to do anything but let them speak to me. I, in my own personal sojourn, found myself profoundly unready and unable to make comment. The significance of the events of this week in Salvation History and in my own journey fill me with the kind of confused respect and awe that the women may have felt at the Tomb that first Easter morning.

I wanted to write something. After all, I had just begun this little venture of commenting on the Lectionary texts and here I am - frozen! As I struggled with what that meant I felt myself letting go of control. It was alright that I could not do this this week. There is a learning in that very thing. Perhap - sometimes - we need to stay out of the way of the text and let the Risen Word speak directly to each heart. Perhaps....

Easter Triduum
"Counting Sunsets"

In the tradition I will enter on Holy Saturday at the Easter Vigil, time for the High Holy Days of Christendom is counted the old Jewish way, from sunset to sunset. Holy Thursday or Maundy ("mandatum" - "command" from "a new commandment I give you, that you love one another") Thursday begins the three days and ends Easter evening. The liturgical action, though, discontinuous in time, is one in action from Holy Thursday with its celebration of the institution of the Eucharist and the Priesthood through Good Friday with its commemoration of the Passion and Death of our Lord and Veneration of the Cross, the instrument of our salvation, through to the Easter Vigil with its re-kindling the light outside the church and its blessing of the waters of baptism and renewal of baptismal vows, is one continuous work.

LENTEN THOUGHTS

Living deeply our new life.... Already I've begun to draw from the waters. The well of prayer is quenching my thirst. The springs of living water arise in me to satisfy my parched and longing heart. I swim in an ocean of God's goodness, borne along on the swells of His mercy, tossed on the playful waves of His grace. I am foam-flecked in the early morning mists with the dew of His joy. Thank you.

Pax Christi,
Charlene
April 22, 2000

copyright - Charlene E. Fairchild - Spirit Networks, 2000 - 2006
please acknowledge the appropriate author.