Palm Sunday

Well, it's Palm -- Passion -- Sunday 2009.

At Mass, Fr. reminded us that this Holy Week is not last year's Holy Week, and that we've got to focus and prepare ourselves anew to consider with repentance, thankfulness, and joy the mysteries of our salvation. 

Afterwards, we held a meeting to go over some of the details of the Triduum, and when we got to Holy Saturday, Fr. said we're going to go all out (again?) this year and put flowers everywhere, read all eight readings, and try to get the church to really pika-pika suru (glitter and sparkle) like a bride for the Easter Vigil. Yay!!!

Incidentally, since there aren't that many parishioners to begin with, I get to do one of the readings-- the fourth, from Isaiah. 

I've been busy, when I could manage it, with some of my own preparations...

But anyway, here we are in the home stretch of Lent, so I rented The Passion before coming home today. I wasn't sure at first if I really wanted to see it again, because I had listened to a homily where the priest said of Jesus meeting the weeping women of Jerusalem, that Jesus rebuked in them a purely sentimental sorrow for His Passion, without attendant compunction and repentance. "Weep not for Me, but for yourselves and for your children."

After thinking about it, though, it's all too easy to forget what Our Lord endured, and this movie really brings it home in a way that doesn't permit you to just go back to business as usual. I think that setting some time aside, not only for the movie but also for prayer and reflection, is a worthy pursuit, particularly for Holy Week.