Clergy Notes — Sunday, March 25, 2018

As we enter this Holy Week the Church invites us once again to focus on the heart of the Good News we profess as Christians, the self-giving love of God in Jesus Christ crucified, vindicated in the resurrection.

The liturgies of the coming days draw us into the drama: on this Palm Sunday we echo the crowd’s joyful welcome as Jesus enters Jerusalem and then listen to St Mark’s account of the Passion; on Wednesday at Tenebrae the church is darkened as we reflect in Psalms and the Lamentations of Jeremiah on a sense of desolation and loss; on Maundy Thursday we come to share with the disciples in the Last Supper where Jesus washes their feet, and then, with Peter, James and John, watch and pray with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane; on Good Friday we listen to St John’s Passion, with its triumphant cry, “It is finished!”, and reverence the Cross in thanksgiving for this great Love which lays down its life for the salvation of all; then in the Great Vigil on Saturday night the Paschal Candle is lit from the new fire, and Exultet, the ancient Easter Proclamation, is sung, calling upon the whole creation, and each one of us, to rejoice in the Resurrection of Christ and the new life which he brings.

As the hymn-writer puts it, “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.”

With my prayers for a Blessed Holy Week, and a Joyful Easter,

Fr Kevin