Let us pick up a big victory during Holy Week

By PAT ARENSBERG
For The Catholic Week
Welcome to Holy Week.  Of course, if you get your paper on Friday afternoon you will have to wait a couple of days before it is officially so.
Holy Week is to Lent as the final two minutes of a basketball game is to the rest of the contest.  In many ways our discipline during Lent helps us to approach the holiest week better prepared.  For example, if we have been disciplining our bodies through fasting, then we will be more prepared to fast on Good Friday.  If we have had a mediocre Lent it may be a bit more difficult to enter into the spirit of Holy Week.
Here’s the good news, and also the challenge.  I have seen games where one team seemed to have the game won (or seem to have lost, depending on your perspective), and things took a dramatic turn at the end.  Having a big lead does not ensure victory and being behind does not ensure defeat.  It is true that being way behind makes victory more difficult, but it does not make it impossible.  Being way ahead does not ensure victory.  The team still needs to protect the ball and sink some free-throws.
If we have had a mediocre Lent let us approach Holy Week as the opportunity to save the season by deeply entering into the Holy Week Liturgies.  If we had a great Lent up until now, don’t let it slip away by not entering into Holy Week.
Specifically, I encourage each of you to attend the Liturgies of the three days known as the Triduum.  The Triduum, which is Latin for three days, is Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter.  These three days are tied together by one Liturgy that begins on Holy Thursday evening and concludes with the closing of Mass at Easter.  Each of these days has a beautiful Liturgy, but if you can only attend one of them do yourself a favor and attend the Easter Vigil.  It is stunning.  It will be familiar to you, yet there will be many elements that only happen at that Mass.
— Pat Arensberg is the Director of the Office for Evangelization and Family Life. Email him at [email protected] 
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