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We are an Easter people. And yet there would be no Easter celebration if we did not first go through the period of preparation: the forty days of Lent, Passion (Palm) Sunday, and the Triduum (three days) of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Great Vigil of Easter. In the same way God prepared the Israelites’ hearts to receive the reward of the ‘promised land’ by their forty year sojourn in the wilderness, we too are given the opportunity to prepare OUR hearts for the good news of God in Christ Jesus by this time leading up to Easter.
Each year we are invited to join with Jesus in his journey through the days of temptation, exaltation, trial, humiliation, crucifixion, and of course, resurrection. For those of us who have taken this journey before we know that it is not an easy one. But we also know that it has the potential of bringing us into a more intimate relationship with our God as we come to better understand the depth of His love for us.
I urge you to make it a priority this year to walk with our Lord on his journey to Calvary. Embrace the opportunity to fully enter into the upcoming liturgies of Holy Week and Easter. Accept the gift of immersing yourself in ‘the story’ this year in a new way. Yes, you may have to give up something else to do it. Yes, it will not always be easy to hear and experience. But when Easter finally does arrive, and the pain and death are behind us, we will experience an even more glorious Easter as we celebrate together Christ’s victory over the powers of sin and death.
Faithfully,
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