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Here are this week’s must-reads:
+ “Holy Thursday: Love serves. Good Friday: Love sacrifices. Easter Sunday: Love saves.” (Fr. Parks)
+ “The truth is, the best way to draw close to Jesus this week isn’t by trying to recreate the Triduum at home. It’s by joining your sufferings to Jesus’ suffering. It’s by saying yes to the crosses of the present moment—the anxiety, fear, loneliness, poverty, and grief—and laying them at Jesus’ feet…
Look to Jesus. Cling to Him. Suffer with Him. God isn’t asking you to Do All The Liturgical Things. He’s asking you to walk with Him to Calvary. He’s calling you to a new level of intimacy and a new experience of love during a Holy Week that is unlike any other Holy Week you’ve ever known. Answer that call. He’ll take care of the rest. For you and your family.” — Emily Stimpson-Chapman
+ “A vocation – any vocation – is a school of charity and a means of crucifixion. Your vocation is the means by which your self-serving ego will die in order to be resurrected as the servant and lover of God. My vocation is where I will learn to let go of my questions, carry the cross of my problems, and be mysteriously fulfilled even when I am not happy… No matter what calling you embrace, your vocation must be your means of letting Jesus into your life completely, learning to love God more than yourself.” (Benjamin Mann, Sword & Spade)
+ A prayer for these days, which I thought was especially beautiful for Holy Week: “That your plan is better than anything else. Jesus, I trust in You.” (from The Litany of Trust by Sr. Faustina Maria Pia)
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+ A Holy Week Devotion: I read a powerful reflection a few years ago that suggested coming up with something in your life that you struggle with or suffer from and asking Jesus to carry this thing along with His Cross — and to conquer it as well on Good Friday. To offer this thing to Jesus in prayer and ask Him to redeem it, too. To renew it and transform it. For something new to be born from it on Easter.
It’s been powerful for me to do this over the last few years so I wanted to share it with you in case it could be helpful for you too. Hang in there, Easter is coming, and “There is no cross to bear that Christ has not already borne for us, and does not now bear with us.” (JP II)
+ I thought of this reflection at Mass yesterday. It’s such a powerful reminder to trust that when Jesus needs something from us, He has a plan. So the cross that has been placed in our lives? There is a future for it, there is a hope for it. Jesus shows us the way this week: “When Jesus got to Jerusalem and needed a mount, he sent some apostles to find a certain colt. When the owners asked where they were taking it, they were to say, “The Master has need of it.”
That was enough. There was no need of explanation, no justification beyond the promise that God had a plan. I’ve been working hard on this, on taking my loss and heartbreak and minor inconveniences and saying, “The Master has need of it.” I’ve been trying to let that be enough… And all throughout, the words of St. John Henry Newman have been running through my mind. “He knows what he is about.” I don’t need to understand what God is doing. I can hold fast to the one who loves me perfectly. When his will is hard and his ways concealed from me, I can cling to the God who handed himself over for me and remind myself, “The Master has need of it. And he knows what he is about.” — Meg Hunter-Kilmer
+ A reflection on this prayer we say at every Mass: “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only way the Word and my soul shall be healed.”
+ “Where most men work for degrees after their names, we work for one before our names: “Saint.” — Mother Angelica
+ “Jesus is worth everything you are on the fence about giving up and more.” — Lisa Whittle
+ Mary of Bethany was generous with the Lord — anointing His feet with the perfumed oil in today’s Gospel reading, at that dinner together. And it brought Jesus comfort. Maybe the smallest touch of peace. How can we be extravagant with God this week? How can we be lavish with Him? How can we abandon practicality in the name of Love? To comfort Him. To love Him. — here
+ A reminder for these last few days of Lent: 🌸 The feasting will be longer than the fasting. 🌸 One of my favorite details about Easter is that the season lasts 50 days — 10 days longer than Lent. This reminds us that the feasting in heaven never ends, and all that we endure in the here & now can be transformed and redeemed. Because of Jesus, we have this hope.
More Finds in this week’s Newsletter, which you can read through here.
