Above all trust the slow work of God.
Holy Week begins with Palm/Passion Sunday. We join the devotion of people across the street and around the world who gather to retell the story of Christ’s sacrificial love.
Why do we do this? Don’t we know the story? What purpose does it serve to hear it again?
While the story has not changed, every year is a new us in the pew, praying the prayers and reading the lessons. Every year there are new things happening in our world as we reach for God’s mercy.
Jesus said, "not my will but Thine be done."
And every year, Holy Week is an invitation to Christians to join Jesus' prayer and God's way of love. We can go through the motions of our religious practices or we can consent to more.
Last week I wrote this little poetic expression that summarizes my consent to God.
I am awake
I am free
I am love
I am waking up
I am being set free
I am learning to love
My consent to God and your consent to God often feel small. But together we join a healing hope for God's salvation. And so we again and again need to offer our ever deepening consent to God and trust we are part of God's plan of salvation.
What few words might encapsulate your consent this year to observe Holy Week? Whether you can get to the services or not this week, offer your consent to God in a prayer.
Trust your becoming, and trust God is saving and recreating our world in love. Join the prayer of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin who wrote,
“Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.”
With You on the Journey,
