Holy Week – The Anchorite

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How We Learn To Stop Worrying and Surrender to Love

We are about to begin Holy Week.

April is Autism Awareness Month.

We are in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

All three realities converge for us now. What do they have to do with one another? Nothing… and everything. The pandemic, and our responses to it, have brought us to a crisis moment as the People of God. There is hope on the horizon – an immense, brilliant hope, hidden in Christ but offered to us now. Before we can perceive this hope, we must acknowledge our situation as it is. This will be very difficult for many. It entails seeing things in a manner differently than the world as a whole sees things. That is why we need to look to autistic people – people who habitually see things differently; people who are not fooled by ‘spin’ – as an example of what this means and how it can work. It is the hour when people who appear to be of no use – such as autistic people and contemplatives – may have something valuable to share with everyone else.

Let us begin. Continue reading “The COVID-19 Zone”

Palm Sunday (A)

On this day, we read two Gospel passages. At the start of the Mass, we read the account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem – the original Palm Sunday. Then, in the Liturgy of the Word, the Gospel reading is the story of the last 24 hours or so before Jesus’ death, beginning with the Last Supper. This Gospel reading is longer, and as such it presents to us a wealth of material for our prayer and reflection. What I will do here is offer a few thoughts on some of the people who appear in the Passion narrative, in the hope that it will help us place ourselves in the story and therefore be more open to whatever word the Lord wants us to hear in it today. Continue reading “Characters of the Passion”