My experience of Holy Week this year was very much set by my particular life circumstances this year. For starters, in addition to being the biggest week in the Christian calendar, it is also one of the busiest weeks in my academic year as a homeschooling parent. Our children have four major events taking place next week, all of which require a ton of work to complete (and which they have been working on for weeks). We knew this was going to be the case, and we planned around it in order to be prepared.
What we did not plan on was me being sick for the second time in two weeks (the first time was a bout of gastroenteritis that took out the whole family, and caused us to lose a week of preparing for these events as we took the time we needed to rest and get well). This second illness, mercifully did not strike everyone. And even those who did come down with it seemed to bounce back relatively quickly. Everyone that is, except for me. I can’t remember the last time I have been so sick.
That this would happen to me during Holy Week was not lost on me, and from the beginning I asked Jesus to use this to help me enter into His passion with Him. Every day I would wake up in the morning thinking, “today is the day I’m going to start getting better.” And every day my illness dragged on. But life didn’t stop, it couldn’t. We have too much to prepare for. And so I reflected on how I could put one foot in front of the other, doing one small thing at a time, with my eyes on Jesus during this holiest of weeks. It became very much a gift for me, because if I had not been ill I think it would have been easy to get lost in the “doing” of this week. Get this project done, practice for this event, pray this way, etc. But having to do all of this through sickness made me think of Jesus so much more, and made me feel closer to Him in all of the things that were made more difficult because of it.
We had made arrangements to go to Confession at the beginning of the week, and when I scheduled it (before I got sick), I thought briefly about postponing until a less busy time. But I knew I wanted us to get to Confession before Easter, and I felt so strongly that doing so even in our busiest week would help us to live all the events that laid before us. Little did I know how much more difficult they would be, and how true this would become.
My husband proposed that we try to attend Mass as often as we could, and again for a split second I thought I could not do this. But once again, this overwhelming feeling that only way to live all the intensity of my life in this moment was united to Christ came over me. And knowing that this was not just any other week, I responded that yes, we could do that. And we did.
Perhaps one of the more difficult ways my illness has impacted me this week was in the way I live my devotions. Because I had no voice, I could not sing (which I love so much, especially during the Triduum). I could not receive Eucharist on the tongue, or kiss the cross during the veneration on Good Friday. Things that would seem small to most people, but for me, because I had decided to do them in order to help me feel more close to Jesus, not being able to was a bit of a sadness. Like when you can’t kiss your elderly grandparent or hold a new baby because you’re ill, you feel the loss of that outward sign of affection when everything inside of you is longing to show it.
However, here is where it really began to bring about a change in me. In all of this, I became aware that all of these things have become traditions, and we have had the blessings to think about them for many years. Those of us who have grown from infancy in the Church have had time to sit with them, to decide how we are going to observe these days, what is most meaningful, which things we will practice in order to hand them down to our children. All very beautiful things. But for me, being stripped of many of these comforts brought me face to face with Jesus in a way I had not been before. It reminded me that once, there was a first Good Friday. And these people did not plan how they were going to mark the day, what they would do to help them connect with Jesus. They simply lived it with Him. In many ways this year I felt that my inability to do things I longed to do helped me to live the Triduum with Him.
A reflection I came across during Holy Week asked me to place myself on the Way of the Cross, and to think about how I would be, and what I would do. And I thought, “I would look at Him.” I would want to see His face, to gaze at Him even if He was never able to look back at me, only because if He did, if at some moment His eyes searched for comfort in mine, I wanted them to be there ready for Him. If I had worry or fear or pain, I would not want to live from that in that moment, I would want to live only for Him, and what He needed from me. I would want the affection of His gaze alone, and for Him to know the affection of mine.
I thought of the Blessed Mother. She did not focus on comforting herself by throwing herself at Jesus and wailing, though no one would have blame her for doing so. She was not living those moments for herself at all, if she was how could she endure them? She was living for Him. And in a very small way, I feel that this is what Holy Week this year has taught me.
During the Easter Vigil Mass, at a parish we have never attended for Easter before, I sat in the quiet room in the dark, rocking my baby. The church, lit only by candlelight, was still bathed in darkness as we waited to commemorate the resurrection. My young son was mesmerized by something behind us, and when I turned to see what it was I saw a fine mist falling outside in the darkness. In the light of day such a small thing would pass by us unnoticed. But by night, in the glow of candlelight, it is serene. And in that moment, so close to the culmination of this great feast, I could not help but feel gratitude for the gift of the darkness.
Or perhaps not the darkness itself, but Christ’s presence in it. Touching every part of it, illuminating it, changing it. Not taking it away, but calling us to walk through it, and giving us what we need to do just that. He not only modelled that for us during the events of His passion, but He continues to give us circumstances that allow us to do the same thing in our own lives, over and over again. This year for me, it was being sick for the second time in two weeks, in the busiest week of the year, during Holy Week. If it had not been for Jesus, this week could have gone very differently. But with Him and through Him, I have walked one of the most beautiful moments of unity with Him that I have ever experienced.
I am still sick today, but Christ has risen! Very truly, in every way. Alleluia! Alleluia!
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