To experience a meaningful Holy Week requires a great leap,
not only of faith, but of imagination. We are asked to suspend
our belief in the scientific method, which replicates experiments
in order to replicate results. Our goal in Holy Week is
different: we go through the familiar readings and rituals as
we’ve done for years, but we’re hoping that something new
will emerge from those ancient stories. We are seeking something
more than what’s on the surface, and in order to find
it we must begin by seeking something less, the humble but
thorough joy of children.
On Palm Sunday we stand with the glad crowds who welcomed
Jesus into Jerusalem shortly before the annual Passover
rituals, marveling that our ordinary day has turned extraordinary
. . . We will need all the certainty of that faith, for
our Palm Sunday readings quickly bring us to the heart of
suffering. The Gospel takes us into Gethsemane, where Jesus
is betrayed and arrested; soon we are hearing the story of his
condemnation and death. Palm Sunday reminds us that our
world can turn on a dime, that sudden changes in our circumstances
can take us straight from praise to lament. But
in exercising our God-given imagination, like the poet who
first sang Psalm 22, we might also allow God to help us turn
our most painful lament into praise.
This is the journey of Holy Week; this is the journey of
our lives.

Kathleen Norris, adapted from God for Us

Kathleen Norris is an oblate of St. Benedict and the author of
many books, including The Cloister Walk and Acedia and Me.
She coedits Soul Telegram, a weekly e-newsletter on movies and
meaning. Follow her at facebook.com/KathleenNorrisAuthor.