Holy Week

“This is an honest [week] of very good ritual that gathers all the absolutely essential but often avoided messages – necessary suffering, real sharing, divine intimacy, and loving servanthood.”
                                                                            -Richard Rohr in Wondrous Encounters

Over these past weeks I have been watching a Yorkshire terrier give birth to and nurture six little puppies. The mother dog is exhausted and, in spite of ceaseless eating, worn thin by the demands of her hungry babies. This very natural, instinctive process comes to mind when I ponder the gift of Holy Week in our lives. Jesus acts much the same as this weary, bone thin mother, but his is a daily choice to give over his life for the sake of ours. Because Jesus loves us more than his own life, he embraces suffering even after asking that it be taken away if possible. His is a conscious choice, eyes wide open to the pain that is ahead, and he makes it out of a deep well of love that we can only imagine. Sharing the very stuff of life that is his own body and blood, Jesus kneels at the feet of his disciples and gives us the eternal example of what it means to love our neighbor as ourself. In fact, we are charged to join in the divine intimacy and reach far beyond ourselves and beyond the calluses and wounds and ugliness of our neighbors into their hearts and serve the person within who is once again the face of Jesus. The circle never ends. Do we have the courage and humility to engage in the “necessary suffering, real sharing, divine intimacy and loving servanthood” of Jesus this Holy Week? May we rise above and beyond our instinctual responses to a gloriously brave embrace of our baptismal call
to walk this week and, therefore, enter into the Easter celebration with open hearts ready for resurrection and even greater love of those we call neighbor, friend, brother or sister.
~ Laura Bregar, OSU