Holy Week: his last days

Read this at the start of Holy Week, if your household keeps the year. It belongs to the Year view only.

This is the heaviest week of the year, and the most important. In it we walk with Jesus through his last days: the night he knelt and washed his friends' feet, the garden where he sweated and prayed to be spared, and the cross, where he forgave the men killing him and gave his life into his Father's hands.

Do not rush through it to get to Easter. The joy of Easter is only as deep as the darkness you are willing to sit in first. Let the week be heavy. Let it cost you something to remember what it cost him.

Because there is only one Sunday in a week, this is a season a household may want to gather more than once. The old church kept particular days:

On Thursday evening, the night he washed feet and shared the last supper, a household might read the feet-washing together, and then actually wash one another's feet, or the feet of a guest, however awkward it feels. It is meant to feel that way.

On Friday, the day he died, keep it quiet and plain. Read the crucifixion. Eat simply. Sit in the silence of it. Do not decorate it.

Then Saturday, the strange in-between day, when he lay in the tomb and the world held its breath, is a day for waiting, the way the first followers waited, not yet knowing what Sunday would bring.

The three readings of this week, the towel, the garden, and the cross, are the center of everything we believe. Here is the whole of the way of Jesus, lived all the way to the bottom: he served the ones who would fail him, he trusted the Father through terror, and he forgave his enemies with his dying breath. If you ever wonder whether the way of love is only fine words, look at this week. He meant every word of it, and he proved it here.

Then comes Sunday. But first, keep the vigil of these days.