Holy Week is a story about the journey of our lives

The Thinking Anew column in The Irish Times today.

Michael Commane

Has it ever dawned on you how much we are the children of our parents and how as we get on in life, find ourselves doing so many of the things they did, even if we, in our younger years, dismissed as old-fashioned what they did?

On Palm or Passion Sunday I always bring home a sprig of palm and place it atop a mirror in my living room. Faith or tradition, maybe both? The palm from last year is still over the mirror and will be replaced tomorrow by a new piece.

Tomorrow is Palm or Passion Sunday. The first day of Holy Week in the Christian tradition. When I was a child, the only ‘theology' I can remember from the day was that it was the Sunday of the ‘Long Gospel’, then came the palm.

 

As an aside, I often wonder if we were any more Christian back then, than we are now? I doubt it, and I for one would not like to return to those days. It was a time when the priest who said the quickest Mass was the most popular in the parish. Wasn’t that  weird? 

I recall my mother, by accident, breaking the fast and asking the priest would it be ok to receive Communion at the Holy Thursday Mass. He said, no she couldn’t. Was it all to do with power and control? Most likely. If previous generations betrayed the Gospel, are we any better?

Does Palm Sunday have any relevance for you?  What about Holy Week and the Easter ceremonies? Even if we are cultural Christians, the idea of selling Easter eggs during Lent, especially Holy Week, seems wrong. It is crass commercialism, and sadly we have become attuned to it.

Tomorrow is a powerful reminder of the lifelong story of our lives, from the remarkable joy of our birth to the devastating moment of our death. Jesus, the man we believe is God, triumphantly enters Jerusalem, later he is crucified. And here’s the turn in the story that makes it all so strange and wonderful, he rises from the dead. That’s the key to Christian belief and it’s not an easy thing to say.

As Fr Dougal might say: ‘Ted, it’s mad, isn’t it?’

Underneath the comedy there might well be much wisdom in what he says. Clichés can easily shield us from meaning and reality. They trip off our tongue, we forget or don’t really recognise what we are saying. Can the same go for religious practice? I think so.

No matter how much we try to airbrush them out of our lives, pain, suffering, death are intrinsic to what it means to be alive. We witness agony in the media on a daily basis. It’s so awful that we have to turn away from looking at it. We can do that at the press of a button.

 

Somehow or other we manage to keep the suffering and pain of others so far away that most of us get on with our daily lives oblivious to what is happening. 

The starving child, the weeping mother, the pain beyond comprehension ... that’s life, but suffering is always lurking around the corner .We never know when it is going to strike.

 

Just as well. What meaningful words do we have to console one who has discovered, out of the blue, that they have a brain tumour? 

Some say it’s part of life and it ends at the grave. I’m inclined to say, no, there’s more to us than this fragility and brokenness. Is that type of thinking a consolation prize that offers me security? I hope not. 

I believe and am inclined to say life does not end at the grave. What lies  beyond I have no idea. I hope and pray it is life everlasting.

 

Holy Week is a literal and metaphorical story about the journey of life. Easter Sunday is about hope and resurrection.

Dominican priest and author, Timothy Radcliffe, who recently spoke in Dublin, says that the death and resurrection of Jesus transforms humanity’s relationship with God.

While writing this column I received the following text message. Here it is, exactly as it was written: “Weather crap as usual - someday the sun will come out.” The story of our lives.