Dear Parish Family,

We enter into the Holy Week with the Liturgy of this Palm Sunday. Because we will come to Church more times than other weeks of the years, we will also hear the Scriptures more than other weeks. One way to reflect on the Passion of Christ is by identifying our self with one of the characters that surround the ‘Passion Narrative.’ “Who am I?”  I as a priest is chosen naturally to speak the words spoken by Christ. It is not easy when I consider … who am I that I should dare to take Christ’s role? Who am I that I should dare to take my Savior’s words as my own? Who am I that I should have the temerity to “be Christ” before others? It is a striking question!

Perhaps it is this question “Who am I?” that the whole of Holy Week and the great liturgies of the Triduum seek to answer, for it is question that, in one sense,  underpins all our faith. Who am I really, that my God should take flesh for me, and come to live with me? Who am I that my God should love me so much that he would and did suffer and die for me? Who am I in the face of the mystery of the Cross? Who am I in the light of the Resurrection dawn? Who am I, that Christ should do all this for me?
Am I one of the crowd, exultant at my first contact with Jesus, waving palms and cheering ecstatically because he has come to the city? Am I still in the first enthusiasm of my discipleship, eager to see and hear the Lord, eager to see his miracles, though still unsure of my relationship with him?
Or am I Simon Peter? Am I, like Peter, in all my outward words and actions the Lord’s “best friend” – yet still troubled that I do not fully understand Jesus, cannot see his ways clearly, and cannot control him? And, in my inmost heart, am I still gripped with fear as soon as the challenge comes – who is this Jesus to you?

Am I one of the women of Jerusalem, those who weep at the futility and cruelty of men’s actions, but seem powerless to change anything? Am I one of those many whom the concrete tragedies of life have brought to the brink of despair, so that their only prayer is the prayer of tears and of silent solidarity with the suffering? I am appalled by the laws that are being legislated which are against my own Christian faith, but I dare not challenge.

Perhaps I am the thief who jeers at Jesus, the one who sees the celebrity hanging next to him in his suffering, but can only think about himself and his escape – “Go on, do your next trick, save yourself and me as well”. Is that what I want? Do I want the “quick fix” Jesus who will take away all the problems and the pain, but from whom I want nothing else? Or am I the good thief, who recognizes that he has nothing left at all, nothing but his sin and just condemnation, and who yet has the courage to ask this innocent Jesus only to remember him, and so wins Christ’s friendship and his own salvation?
Or am I Mary, wordless and bewildered at the foot of the Cross, wondering where the hand of God is in this life that she has given to the world, wondering if this is all there is as that life is snuffed out. Am I still looking to find where God is in my life – that God who once seemed so close, whose touch brought such joy, but who now seems so very, very distant?

For each of us in these days of Holy Week the answer to this question “Who am I?” will be different, and will be different this year from last year and the years before. For it is when we walk this road with Jesus through these days, when we come to be with him in these hours, when we come to know him as he is, in all his love towards us and suffering for us, in all the mystery of the Passion, that we will come to see ourselves more clearly, and know ourselves as God knows us – as those he loves and saves.

I hope you can make the “Holy Week Experience” a family event giving it the prime importance it deserves. Reflecting on the kernel of our Faith Experience, Passion-Eucharist-Death-Resurrection we create space within us to allow the grace of God to imprint ‘God-purpose’ on our hearts. Moving from recalling past events, we move into our present way of living to challenge ourselves to engage with God on a personal level. I wish you and your family many blessings of the Feast of the Resurrection.

Fr. Tom Kunnel C.O.