Scripture Reading Reflection
By Fr. Andrew Kelly
PALM SUNDAY OF THE PASSION OF THE LORD – MARCH 29, 2015
The believing community’s greatest Easter Triduum challenge is simply to do nothing. It is difficult to sit in stillness and silence while allowing neighbors and friends to proclaim ancient Scriptures and do ancient rituals.
In faith, “people we know” will lead the community in remembering that Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday are all about the here and now.
Through these ordinary people the community will be led to both remember and experience again what is acclaimed so often: “Save us, Savior of the world, for by your cross and resurrection you have set us free.”
Does the community believe that Jesus Christ is so present and available through these sacred Scriptures and rituals? That Jesus Christ is doing in the here and now what is being heard and ritualized?
Without faith, the Easter Triduum Scriptures and rituals are a tortuous unending bore. But with faith, the Scriptures and rituals become splendid moments of Jesus Christ dying and rising at the community’s very core.
All the community can do this Easter Triduum is to gather in stillness and silence while listening and believing. This allows the Easter Lord to grab hold and transform the community’s soul.
(Father Andrew Kelly is a retired priest of the Diocese of Davenport.)