Happy Holy Week and Happy Passover. Holy Week began yesterday with Palm Sunday, and Passover begins this Thursday.

     Looking way back to when I was a "youngster," one of the most memorable events of the year at St. John’s Cathedral in Fresno was the Chrism Mass on Holy Thursday morning. Priests from all over the diocese, each dressed in a chasuble, would march into the Cathedral to participate in the blessing of the holy oils by the Bishop. This particular liturgy was very different from the rest of the Holy Week liturgies. It was colorful and joyful. The priests seemed happy to have the opportunity to get together. I think the experience planted a desire in me to be a priest.

     Since Vatican II, one of the most striking services in Holy Week is the liturgy on Holy Thursday evening. The priest celebrant washes the feet of twelve parishoners. I don’t know if they pick out the participants ahead of time. Perhaps over the course of the year, they observe who has smelly feet or perhaps they just pick folks at random and take their chances! All kdding aside, it is truly a moving ceremony. It’s really getting down to the basics of our Christianity.

     The original Passover events certainly have their share of blood and gore and good guys and bad guys as does the Holy Week events. As I was listening to some commentaries this weekend, I was struck by the focus of Liberation that is offered to US, however many thousands of years later, by the Passover celebration. There are certainly similar themes in our Catholic liturgy this Holy Week, but I get a sense that, as Catholics, we still tend to focus on the blood and gore and the good guys and bad guys. And I’m wondering how we get stuck there.  It certainly keeps the focus off of US.

     Speaking of good guys and bad guys, I have often wondered what happened to all the folks who welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem?  And then what happened to Peter, who one minute is cutting off the ear of a Roman guard, and the next, denying that he even knows Jesus? Why were there so few followers at the foot of the cross?

     So perhaps, one the themes for US could be faithfulness (and betrayal). We could spend the week looking at all the relationships in our lives that call us to be faithful, and at least for this week, we could work on stopping ourselves from betraying those relationships. When I speak of relationships, I am referring to even the relationship with oneself. So I could work this week on being faithful to my health, for example!

     Now I have been reading the Tao Te Ching a la Wayne Dyer a lot lately. Lao Tzu, traditionally thought to be the author of the Tao Te Ching, suggests that a wise man does not preach. So, if I am preaching, I am not being very wise. I hope I am not preaching. Just sharing a few thoughts for Holy Week. I guess I could experiment with being a good student, and just have a blank blog each Monday morning, and leave it to you to use the blank page as a medium of inspiration to see for yourself what the Universe is calling you to for the week. M-m-m.! That would be interesting, wouldn’t it?  Especially if magically everyone actually saw something on the blank page.  Wow!  Might try that for next Monday!

Happy Holy Week and Happy Passover