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| Outdoor Stations, Good Friday 2006 |
(Palm Sunday 2017 (A): This homily was
given on April 9, 2017 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond
Suriani.)
[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Palm Sunday 2017]
I won’t give a regular homily this
morning (because of the length of the Passion narrative we just heard), but I will
ask you to reflect seriously on one very important question:
What
will you do to make this Holy Week “holy” for yourself?
In Hebrew the word for holy literally
means “to be set apart”. And that’s a
great definition, because when we say that somebody is “holy,” we’re really saying
that they’re different—that they’re “set apart,” in a certain sense, from other
people. We’re saying that they’re more
faithful, more loving, more virtuous, and more obedient to God than the average
person is.
And that includes the average believing person.
Well, we call this week “Holy Week” for
a similar reason. We call this week
“holy” because it’s supposed to be different; because it’s supposed to be “set
apart” from the other 51 weeks of the year.
That means for us Christians it’s not
supposed to be business as usual for the next 7 days! This, after all, was the week that our
salvation was won for us. This was the
week when God demonstrated in the most powerful way possible how much he loves
us. This was the week that made it
possible for us to receive forgiveness for our sins, regardless of how numerous
and bad they might be. This was the week
that made heaven possible for us and for every human person.
The more we can break away from our
daily routines and consciously enter into the Holy Week experience—in other
words, the more we make Holy Week “holy” for ourselves—the more we give God the
opportunity to transform our minds and hearts by the power of his saving grace.
So here are a few suggestions on how to
do that. Here’s the Holy Week schedule
at St. Pius:
On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we
will have morning Mass, as usual, at 7am.
We will have Eucharistic Adoration all day on Tuesday. We will have Stations of the Cross at 6:05 on
Tuesday after Benediction. Confessions
will be heard during our Wednesday Holy Hour, from 5-6pm. We will have Morning Prayer Thursday, Friday
and Saturday at the regular Mass times.
And, most important, we will have the Liturgies of the Triduum on
Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings: the Mass of the Lord’s Supper will be
at 7pm on Thursday, followed by Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in the
church hall until 11pm. On Friday we
will have the celebration of the Lord’s Passion at 7pm, and Stations of the
Cross twice: once outside at noon (weather permitting), and then at 3pm here in
church. And finally, we will have the
first Mass of Easter—the Easter Vigil Liturgy—at 7:30pm on Holy Saturday
night. (Please note: There will be no
5pm Mass next Saturday.) Masses on
Easter Sunday will be at the normal Sunday times: 7, 8:30 and 10:30am.
What will I do to make this Holy Week
“holy” for me?
Make sure you answer that question
today for yourself, and adjust your schedule accordingly. It will be worth it, because when we do in
fact make Holy Week holy for ourselves, we give Almighty God the opportunity to make us holy for himself—or at least
to make us a little bit holier than we are right now.
