A Meditation for Holy Week

          Like splendid palm branches, we are strewn in the Lord’s path. – Latin Antiphon
 
Prayer of the Week:
Lord our God, holy is your name! Incline our hearts to your commandments, and give us the wisdom of the cross, so that, freed from sin, which imprisons us in our own self-centeredness, we may be open to the gift of your Spirit, and so become living temples of your love.  Amen.
 
Theme of the Week:  
​The Way of the Cross is the Way of Trust.
Where have you chosen not to place your trust?  
In each circumstance, does the decision bring freedom?
In each circumstance, does your decision bring a burden?
What will you do with your freedom?
Imagine placing your burden at the foot of the cross.
                             
Spiritual Practice: Contemplation of the Cross
They who enter the way of life in faith bear the cross patiently.  They who advance in hope bear the cross readily.  They who are perfected in charity embrace the cross ardently.         - St. Bernard of Clairvaux
 
Sayings from the Desert
The Cross is the true tree of life.                                                                 - A Monk
 
The cross tests everything.                                                                           - Martin Luther
 
The death of Jesus is a mystery wrought in the silence of God.      -St. Ignatius of Antioch

Now is the hour of the garden and the night, the hour of the silent offering; therefore the hour of hope:  God alone. Faceless, unknown, unfelt, yet undeniably  God.                                                                                                                                      - Abbe Monchanin  

Simply waiting for God in silence is prayer.                                             - Ladislaus Boros
 
Alleluia is the song of the desert.                                                               - Thomas Merton
 
At midnight I awoke and gazed up to heaven.
No star of all the starry host
Smiled down upon me at midnight.
At midnight my thoughts went out into the bounds
Of darkness.
No light brought me thoughts of comfort
At midnight.
At midnight I noted the beating of my heart;
I felt a single pang of pain.
At midnight.
At midnight I fought the battle of human woe;
But with all my power I could not decide it.
At midnight.
At midnight I gave the power into thy hand,
Lord, thou keepest watch over life and death,
At midnight.         -  Freidrich Ruckert