Holy week begins marking the final week of the Season
of Lent and also recounts the final days of the life of Christ as well as His
death and resurrection. I love Palm Sunday
and the way the Catholic Church celebrates Jesus’ triumphant entrance into
Jerusalem. This year Father decorated
the church’s entry and path towards the altar with giant palm branches. The decorated walk really helped transport
the community to a beautiful day over two-thousand years when people honored
Jesus as King.
The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that
Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm
branches and
went out to meet him, shouting: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name
of the Lord! Blessed is the king of Israel!” John 12:12-13
This Palm Sunday was really special because my nephew decided
that he wanted to go to Mass and once we left the service he declared he wanted to come
back every Sunday! As you might recall,
part of my Lenten plan included creating time to spend with my family. During the past forty days I began a prayer
series with my little man and also a time of evangelization. Though we did miss quite a few days of prayer
and learning- the time we did spend really helped him understand and appreciate
our faith more. Before our Lenten study,
he thought all things godly translated into boring, but thanks to the Berenstain
Bears this year his mind was transformed.
It was truly amazing to see the change in his character and his desire
to pray more. In fact, every day he
reminded me that it was time to pray and when we missed prayer days it was
really my fault. During Mass on Sunday
he was really trying to participate in all the celebration following the Missal
and repeating the prayers. He left with
a palm branch and seriously contemplating a safe place to store it (smile).
His surprising transformation from a child who associated the
faith with boredom to one who was drawn deep into the Spirit of God really
helped me understand how we are all attracted to goodness (smile). It also confirmed that Lent is a time to fast and in doing so produce fruits that have life changing effects.
No comments:
Post a Comment