REFLECTIONS ON HOLY WEEK

One of my Lenten practices is to, sometime during Lent, watch the movie “The Passion of the Christ.” I do this as an aid to my meditation upon the cost that Jesus paid for my sin and salvation. As depicted in the movie, one can see how high a price that was. And, I am sure that what was captured on film is only a small portion of the horror of the last hours of our Lord.

This I do know. He paid it! That is why He came. Isaiah prophesied it over 700 hundred years before that first fateful “Holy Week.”

“Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account. Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By a perversion of justice he was taken away. Who could have imagined his future? For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people. They made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain. When you make his life an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days; through him the will of the Lord shall prosper. Out of his anguish he shall see light; he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge. The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”

Isaiah 53

Oh, the love of God for us. Think on the price He paid as you journey through Holy Week. But also realize that so great a price must have purchased so valuable a commodity! It paid for our sins, it ransomed our souls, it set us free to know God and discover who we are in Him. Reflect on His passion and discover your destiny!

Blessings,

Fr. David Barrett