Dear Holy Rosary Parishioners,
Next Sunday is Palm Sunday, and we begin Holy Week. It is indeed the holiest week of the year, and yet it can be easily lost in the busyness of life. The meaning of the victory of Easter is wrapped up in the defeat of Holy Week. Please make every effort to observe Holy Week both exteriorly by participating in the liturgies of the week as much as possible and interiorly by accompanying Jesus in your hearts through prayer and recollection. It is truly hard to believe that our God would die for us. He did. How does this happen? It happens in Holy Week. Come and see!
The very center of Holy Week is the Easter Vigil. There is no anticipated Mass at 5 p.m. on Holy Saturday. Instead, at 7:30 p.m. there is the heart of the Church’s year: the Easter Vigil. It has to begin in the dark so that accounts for the later time. This one liturgy really contains the entire Mystery of Faith. OK — it is long, but it is so powerful that new Christians and Catholics are born from the Church’s mysteries on this night.
Good Friday is the only day on which Mass is not celebrated. Instead, at 3 p.m. we share in the Passion of Jesus and venerate the Cross of Christ, receiving Holy Communion from the Eucharist which was instituted at the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, celebrated the night before, prefiguring the bloody sacrifice of Calvary. In the Holy Thursday Mass at 7 p.m., the new commandment of charity is portrayed in the washing of the feet. We are also invited to watch with Jesus for one hour during his agony later in the night.
Earlier in the week is the Chrism Mass, which commemorates the institution of the priesthood. It is celebrated by the bishop in union with almost all the priests of the diocese. It will be at Sagrado Corazon on Tuesday night at 6:30 p.m. All of this begins with Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday which so soon leads to His death on Good Friday. After a week like Holy Week, Easter makes so much more sense!
Faithfully,
Fr. Baker