The most sacred days of our liturgical year are upon us. As I write this, Pat Clement, one of the co-founders of the Pentecost Vigil Project, Inc. is gathered in Chicago with several other catechetical professionals, planning how to recruit 400 parishes in 40 dioceses to be part of an intentional focus on becoming a synodal parish. Stay tuned for her bits and pieces, and for more on what this august group is learning and sharing. Do pray for them as they discern the Spirit's will and way.
Nick Wagner and Diana Macalintal are encouraging us to allow the richness of our rituals these days to speak for themselves, especially for those celebrating sacraments of initiation. I bring this up here because their call to respect the sacred silence so that the Spirit can speak is also fundamental to the synodal way. Before we preach, teach, and prepare, let us vow to keep a sacred silence so that the rituals themselves provide the Spirit places to transform.
Join with us as on Holy Thursday we contemplate how a more synodal Church is one bowed down in service to one another, how spiritual listening is an act of great love, and how our own anointings empower us to live as Spirit-filled disciples.
Join with us on Good Friday as we venerate the cross...the sign of immense love, the promise of redemption, the sacrifice of love that gathers us together in wonder, and awe and that sends us forth, to love as Jesus did.
Join with us as on Easter, beginning with the Mother of All Vigils, we celebrate what love has birthed within, among and around us: eternal life, now and forever.
These are our holiest days. May we journey through them together, be transformed by Christ's presence among us, and when they are done, enter the Easter season witnessing to the Good News that Jesus Christ is alive here, and now...and that our Church now on the #synodjourney is a living witness to this truth as she herself undergoes a transformation.
And plan to join with us as the Easter season gives way to Ascension and then Pentecost as we pray our Pentecost novena! We'll begin on May 9th! Look for the Zoom link a little closer to the event!
May the Holy Spirit enliven your hearts these next days as together we walk the Holy Week road!
Image from St. Joseph Parish Wakefield, MA