18 April 2022
‘The Lord is at hand. Be careful for nothing.’[1] Through today’s epistle reading, the immaculate Church announces that the time of our Lord’s salvation has arrived; that the time has come for the faithful to experience once more the incomprehensible mystery of the divine Economy.
During these holy days, we no longer make petitions to God. We only offer a prayer of gratitude, which, in its fervour, turns into a fiery prayer of repentance. Besides, what more could man ask when he sees God crucified? ‘Let all mortal flesh keep silence and stand with fear and trembling.’ Now is the time to fall down on our knees and worship with reverence the mystery of the love and Passion of Christ, which begins today with His entrance into Jerusalem. It is the time to shut the doors of our senses, so that we may concentrate our mind in our heart and approach ‘with humility and reverence’[2] these eternal events.
If the world drowns us in its many cares, then the whole of Great Lent, and even more Holy Week, is granted to us as an anchor of hope, an anchor in heaven, as it provides us with the opportunity and privilege to turn our minds from things corruptible to things incorruptible, from things earthly to things heavenly, and to immerse ourselves in the mystery of the way of Christ. Through her services, hymns and readings, the Holy Church reveals this mystery to us in an exquisite manner and strengthens us to discern the way of the Lord, each one according to his own strength.
