The associated reading for this reflection can be found in your Every Sacred Sunday Mass journal or online here.
Palm Sunday. The Triduum. Beautiful? Moving? As an adult Catholic and seminarian, I can emphatically say yes. But as a kid, I would list Holy Week as a major source of stress and anxiety. No number of fun palms could compensate for having to stand, not only once, but twice, bored and confused, attempting to listen to the Passion narrative. And just when I thought that was long enough, my heart would drop to see the priest mount the ambo to preach.
Then, there was the Holy Thursday night vigil. “Could you not keep watch for one hour?”, my mom would ask me whenever I started to complain or put up some excuse to get out of it. Ouch. Right to the heart.
Holy Week can be tough. The liturgies can be confusing, with all the kneeling and standing and kneeling again. And if dull and lengthy isn’t enough, take Chick-Fil-A and bacon off the menu and add fasting.
Jesus’s disciples must have felt the same way at various times throughout the Passion. They too were confused, bored, anxious, frustrated, hungry, sleepy, and afraid. How many times did they also think: “I can’t take this anymore; this is just too hard for me!” And, in the end, they walked away from the Cross. That night after the Passion, they too must have been haunted by the Lord’s question: “Could you not keep watch for one hour?”
Jesus does not ask us for our good feelings. He does not ask us to pretend as if we are not bored or hungry or confused. He simply asks us to stay faithful, to commit to staying with Him on his journey to Calvary. Jesus the Good Teacher personally suffers the price of fidelity to the will of the Father; not just as an example, but so that He can be with us in our own walk to Calvary, making us able, with His grace, to stay faithful to the will of the Father.
In the place of our sin, He places His perfection.
In the place of our weakness, He puts down His strength.
And in the place of our failures, He pours out His forgiveness.
Conrad Espino is a seminarian for the Archdiocese of Chicago. He is currently in his second year of theology studying at Mundelein Seminary.