Palm Sunday

Today is Palm Sunday. Holy week has begun.

I can already feel the heaviness in my heart of what is to come this week.

We are an Easter people and yet our joy has been taken from us. 

Our joy of tradition. 

We can't gather together. We have to hide out at home.  

Maybe this is what it felt like for the apostles?

Empty, sad, disappointed and alone.

Today we held our palms but it wasn't the same as coming together as a people.

A people of hope and anticipation. 

A people wanting and trying to accept His plan. 

This year won't be the same as past years. 

It will be different. 

It won't feel like "Easter." 

But it is an invitation to partake in Christ's passion and suffering.

God sent His only Son to become like us, to suffer like us and to die like us. 

The question is not "for what" but "for whom." 

He held us by name in His precious but broken heart as He suffered and died. 

His suffering and death, resurrection and triumph is for us. 

Will we accept His love offering? 

Will we use this as an opportunity to offer up our suffering? 

Will we choose to offer this abnormal Holy Week, Triduum, Easter and quarantine?

To suffer, die, rise and triumph?

To unite our suffering with His,

Thoughts from Fr. Mike Schmitz homily 

“It's true, I suffer a great deal--but do I suffer well? That is the question.”
― Therese de Lisieux, St. Therese of Lisieux: Her Last Conversations