ST JOHN THE EVANGELIST

If you do not usually attend Mass on Maundy Thursday or Holy Saturday, or the Passion on Good Friday, I would definitely encourage you to try it this year. The celebrations are long and take our time and effort, but they are irreplaceable, rich, beautiful. The importance of Holy Week is summed up by the little phrase the priest uses at the start of the Palm Sunday liturgy: "Let us commemorate the Lord's entry into the city for our salvation, following in his footsteps, so that being made by his grace partakers of the Cross we may have a share also in his Resurrection and in his life". 'Partakers' is the mot juste. Holy Week is not just any old festival, it is a sacramental participation in the life and death of the Lord Jesus Himself. We "follow in his foosteps" in two ways that are interconnected. The first way is by really celebrating the Word of God in a very serious manner. Throughout the different liturgies, we eat a veritable banquet of the Scripture, comprising all the greatest mysteries of our life, from the creation of the world to the last hours of Jesus' earthly life, His death, and His rising. At the same time, we enact those mysteries through liturgical action engaging our senses: the waving of palms, the washing of feet, the veneration of the Cross, the lighting of the Paschal Candle, and so on. Secondly, we "follow in his footsteps" by letting this Word change our hearts. For example, spending time in meditation before the Blessed Sacrament on Holy Thursday is not just remembering Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, but it is really joining with Him there, praying for the whole world and asking for the strength to die to sin with Him. Celebrating the blessing of the font at the Easter Vigil is not just a recalling of baptism, but a real refreshing of our baptismal grace that flows from the life of the Rising Christ Himself. Holy Week marks and shapes our Christan life entirely. On Easter Sunday, we will all renew our commitment to God as Christians, and the Holy Spirit will mark one of our number in the Sacrament of Confirmation, making him a full member of the Church's family. He will receive the Lord who was crucified and became our food for the first time in the Eucharist, just as we celebrate Christ, the New Passover, who is sacrificed. Holy Week is not just thinking about salvation -it is actually about being saved.  At the end of the Easter Vigil, the priest blesses the people saying: "Now that the days of the Lord's Passion have drawn to a close, may you who celebrate the gladness of the Paschal Feast come with Christ's help and exulting in spirit, to those feasts that are celebrated in eternal joy." We pray that, with Christians around the world, we will celebrate this week as fully as we can - and that we will celebrate it one day, not in sacraments, but in the presence of the Holy Trinity itself, with the saints in heaven. We pray especially this year for Christians in the Holy Land, and in our parish for Gregory Cooper, as he is received into the universal Church.

Parish Pastoral Council – Formation Group minutes can be viewed below from Monday 23rd April 2024