6 Gulf Pine Catholic • March 27, 2026 As we enter Holy Week and commemorate the days leading up to and including Jesus’ crucifixion, I want to share a few reflections to ponder from some wise writers: ■ Each Palm Sunday, we recall the image of the crowds praising God and celebrating Jesus as He rode a donkey into Jerusalem. But why did He enter the holy city on an animal considered a “beast of burden” rather than a more regal creature, such as a horse? Writing in The Tablet, the newspaper of the Diocese of Brooklyn, New York, Rita Piro explained, “The horse was the animal of war and violence, adorned with grandeur, ready to do battle among warriors and kings. The lowly donkey…was considered the animal of peace, unity, and friendship. The steady, faithful friend of the common man. Any man, king, or peasant alike who came riding on a donkey was seen as a symbol of gentleness, humility, and service.” Piro continued, “The master has need of us, too. Like the donkey of Palm Sunday, we are all called to carry Jesus to others. The way we act, speak, look, and even think must always reflect Jesus, His ways, and His teachings. Whether or not we consider it a burden to do so is up to us.” ■ In Jesus’ day, people wore sandals as they walked the dirt roads, so their feet quickly became filthy. Washing the feet of a guest in your home, therefore, qualified as a dirty job. Yet washing the feet of the apostles is exactly what Jesus did at the Last Supper, asking, “Do you realize what I have done for you?” So, why would the Savior of the world do such a thing? “What Jesus did stands before us as a defining example of humility and sacrifice, of service and love,” observed Deacon Greg Kandra at TheDeaconsBench. com. “It tells us that to be an apostle of Christ means we must be willing to get down on our knees for another. In one sense, to wash the feet of someone else is to remove the dust and debris and the grit of life -- to cleanse, to renew, to restore. But in a deeper sense, it challenges us to something more. It says the Christian life is not about standing above anyone. It is about bending. Giving. Serving. Restoring newness and hope.” ■ Author and spiritual director Becky Eldredge got a phone call from a friend who had suffered greatly in her life. But on this particular day, this friend conveyed a spirit of hope, saying, “Becky, I had a huge ‘aha’ this morning. It matters to Jesus what I have gone through. Every bit of it. It matters to Jesus.” Writing at IgnatianSpirituality.com, Becky recalled feeling joy for her friend. Becky also thought back to her own ‘aha’ moment while practicing the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius some time ago. She said, “As I hear and pray with the moments of Jesus’ suffering during the Lenten season, my understanding of how much Jesus understands suffering widens. He not only gets physical pain, betrayal, and abandonment, but He also understands being misunderstood, what it feels like not to belong, and what it’s like to forgive…There is something that changes in us when we let the wounds of our lives touch the wounds of Jesus. It is as if Jesus were gazing at us with eyes of love and understanding, inviting us to tell Him everything we are seeing and feeling.” Tony Rossi is the radio host/producer for The Christophers. For a free copy of the Christopher News Note, GOOD SPORTSMANSHIP, write: The Christophers, 5 Hanover Square, New York, NY 10004; or e-mail: mail@christophers.org. Light One Candle Rossi Reflections for Holy Week Propped up on pillows, ice packs piled on my aching chest, I watched our parish livestream of the celebration of the Lord’s Passion on Good Friday. After the painful biopsy earlier that morning, I could not make it to church -- one more loss in an unexpectedly hard Holy Week. Two weeks earlier I had found a lump in my breast. The routine exam turned into a mammogram, then an ultrasound, then the biopsy. That year Lent turned into a physical suffering I carried in my body. During Holy Week, caught in the harrowing in-between, all I had was Christ’s own passion to hold my anxiety and fear. On that Good Friday, my husband had taken our five boys to church alone -- and since our youngest had just turned three (3), we were still firmly frontrow-people: the only pew where we knew our brood had the best chance to pay attention. But the angle of the live-stream camera between the altar and the ambo was also aimed at the front pew. So for the entire solemn service, I watched my beloved family somber-faced without me at their side. Wincing from my incisions, I wrestled with my worst fears: It looked like I was watching my own funeral. My bereaved spouse. My motherless children. Needless to say, I wept through that Good Friday. Holy Saturday brought extra weight as we waited for the biopsy results. Even Easter felt hard that year -- especially when Easter Monday brought the news that the tumor was cancer. How could I rejoice when I felt my own mortality breathing down my neck? Three years later, cancer-free and preparing for another Easter on the horizon, I look back on that hardest Holy Week with unexpected perspective. Not a blithe and bright “everything happens for a reason” cliche. But a bone-deep gratitude for a faith that never shies away from the hardest parts of living, that embraces Christ’s own suffering as a transformation of our grief and loss. There is nowhere we can go that God has not gone before us. This Lent has felt extra Lenty, personally and communally. In my home state of Minnesota, friends and neighbors are still reeling from unexpected chaos, suffering, fear and violence. Our world has once again descended into the chaos of war. At home, my own list of petitions runs long and hard: a couple struggling with infertility, parents and children estranged because of mental illness, families grieving for grandparents and a community suffering from the latest gun violence. Nearly every day I pray the same plaintive plea: “How long, O Lord?” Yet the reality of resurrection remains the bedrock of my faith. Our family, our home and our hopes are built on this firm ground. I will not let seasons of suffering define who we are forever. As St. John Paul II said, “We are an Easter people, and Alleluia is our song.” Christ’s suffering and dying transform our own, but it is His rising that gives us eternal life. No matter how long our seasons of Lent stretch, Easter is waiting for us. In the years when life becomes extra Lenty, the gift of the Triduum becomes even more clear. As a Church we enter completely into the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. We hold nothing back. All our personal losses and griefs are gathered into Christ’s embrace on the cross -- only to be transformed by the astonishing joy of Easter morning. If this Lent, this year, or what feels like your whole lifetime has been hard and heavy, may you and those you love find hope in the promise of what Holy Week holds. When everything looks like death, God is already at work to bring new life. Even the longest Lents pale in comparison to the stunning light that Easter brings. Laura Kelly Fanucci is an author, speaker and founder of Mothering Spirit. Her latest book is “Living Easter: 50 Days to Practice Resurrection.” She writes the “Faith at Home” column for Catholic News Service. OSV News photo photo/courtesy Laura Kelly Fanucci Guest Columnist Fanucci When Lent is extra Lenty, you need Holy Week even more
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MzEwNTM=