Holy Week and Easter
John Michael Talbot

Peace and Good in Christ!

We are now coming to the holiest of all celebrations in the Church liturgical calendar; Holy Week and Easter. Every year it is a dramatic reenactment of Jesus' Passion that led to the Cross, and the complete wonder and awe of His resurrection. This reenactment is for our benefit, so that we are able to actually experience something of the reality of these historical and mystical events in our own life and time. Of course, God really has no need of our holy days and such, but they are most helpful for us, so He gives them to us through His Church. They are a precious gift of love from Him, and we treasure them.

I must confess that this year I am still submerged in Lent at this point. The monastic community has been good enough to allow me to have some more intense time in the solitude and silence of my hermitage this year, and so I am relating to Jesus in the desert very strongly. Selfishly, I might wish that I could stay here in solitude longer, but, alas, this shall not be. Holy Week will be upon us soon, regardless of my personal, and often petty likes and dislikes no matter how "holy" I can make them sound to myself and others. God's idea of activity is sometimes quite different from my own!

Of course, even in my Lenten solitude I also get a taste of His active ministry through the daily things of monastic community that never cease to come across the spiritual father's desk. Plus more personally, I have had some minor health problems this year that even make the long hours of solitude and silence a bit more tiresome. I must confess that all of this makes me look forward to the liturgical activities of Holy Week with a bit less enthusiasm than normal. This is because of my self indulgence and preoccupation.

But such things are the common lot of us all, not just those living in an integrated monastic community or in a hermitage. Especially as we grow older we all have the interruptions of various health issues. Some of these are major illnesses or injuries, but most are minor and nagging inconveniences from the good health we often took for granted when we were a bit younger. They all cause pain at some level.

And then there are the parish ministers, clerical and lay. Most parish ministers look forward to Holy Week with a tenuous combination of excitement and dread. They love the holiness of the season, and the chance to put everything they and the parish have into the celebrations. But it is also non stop work for them. They usually take a long deep breath as they begin, and don’t get a chance to breathe out until it is all over. When they do it is usually a long, deep sigh of relief that it is all over. Easter Week itself is often a time to just recover a bit before the more regular parish routine starts again.

But these inconveniences and interruptions are gifts from God for those who can look with the eyes of faith, hope, and love. Health issues allow us to share in the physical suffering of Jesus. The more intense public church services allow us to share with Jesus, who spent long periods in solitude before, and after His periods of ministry, but He always allowed these interruptions to be opportunities to minister His great love and healing to the multitudes.

This does not change the immediate experience of interruption or even frustration on a human level, but it allows us to go more deeply into these experiences through faith and prayer and find them the blessings of God that they really are. This is what allowed Jesus to go through these days of human passion and pain with the holy hope and faith in the resurrection and new life. This gave Him a divine peace that stayed with Him even in the human pain of the Passion.

It may sound a bit stock, or even trite to say it, but this year let's all allow ourselves to be "interrupted" by Jesus. Our normal weekly schedule of family, church, and work will be interrupted by the different, and more frequent church services. Instead of seeing them only as "interruptions," and "inconveniences" let's see them as "opportunities" for the love of God to shine in our hearts and souls through the personal experience of the Passion and resurrection of Jesus Christ this year.

You will all be in my prayers as we celebrate here at the Hermitage. Please keep us in your as well.

In Jesus,
John Michael Talbot
Founder, Spiritual Father and General Minister
The Brothers and Sisters of Charity at Little Portion Hermitage