We enter Holy Week knowing that Jesus is already risen from the dead. We carry within ourselves the promise of life, a life that is meant to be shared, especially with the poor. This is not a fantasy because we sense the flooding of God in our hearts (Rom. 5:5) and we can trust the testimony of the Gospels. Often, this God is experienced as a kind of absence or darkness of knowing. Holy Week can be a time to experience God's presence as absence. We sense the absence when we see the negative reports against community on the TV news. How does the Christian pray with the news? Do we let our hearts to be moved when we see a tragedy reported? What desires and feelings are emerging when we see the news? As Christians, we believe the Gospel of John which says that "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, not to condemn the world, but to save it." This is the core message of Christianity. "God so loved the world . . . ."
An exercise this week is to see the world as God sees it (St. Ignatius in the "Spiritual Exercises"). Let our eyes be God's eyes. We turn the TV channel to see the news, to contemplate the implications, to monitor our feelings and desires, to pray. Holy Week is the time to pray "the news." After all, the world lives in the shadow of the Cross.
An exercise this week is to see the world as God sees it (St. Ignatius in the "Spiritual Exercises"). Let our eyes be God's eyes. We turn the TV channel to see the news, to contemplate the implications, to monitor our feelings and desires, to pray. Holy Week is the time to pray "the news." After all, the world lives in the shadow of the Cross.
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