KNOW THE ESSENTIAL DAYS OF OUR FAITH

These messages of strength, challenge, and hope are vital for all of the people of God…

HOLY WEEK: These Essential Days[1]

THIS is the most poignant week in our lives – the most important week in the history of the world. Each year, we relive the events that happened more than 2,000 years ago, and we are powerfully reminded of the sacrifice and love of our Lord.

As Blessed Pope John Paul II said in his 2004 Lenten message: “During Lent, we prepare to relive the Paschal Mystery, which sheds the light of hope upon the whole of our existence, even its most complex and painful aspect. Holy week will again set before us this mystery of salvation in the evocative rites of the Easter Triduum.”

EASTER: The Most Important Day in the Christian Year[2]

IT may seem sometimes that the Christmas has become the most important Day of the year, but for many reasons, according to the Christian Calendar, Easter is the lynchpin for everything else. Our faith would make no sense if it were not for the events of Holy Week and Easter Sunday. It is on these days that we remember and participate in the most essential facts of life with God.

Easter is known as the “Feasts of all feasts,” and the “Solemnity of solemnities.” The promise of Easter began at Creation itself. As Pope Pius XI said in 1937: “The promise of a Redeemer brightens the first page of the history of mankind, and the confident hope aroused by this promise softened the keen regret for the paradise which had been lost. It was this hope that companied the human race on its weary journey, until in the fullness of time the expected Savior came.”

Then, of course, that expected Savior died, and on the third day, He rose again!

May we have a meaningful and fruitful Easter celebration!