19/03/2020
A month ago I looked with some reluctance at the same Holy Week we were about to live and that was already approaching, that so pleasant and worldly one that we enjoyed for the previous 14 years: ski vacations in the Pyrenees, staying in a cabin lost in the mountain with a barbecue where, day after day, all my atheist friends we met every year would come.
And my Holy Weeks were filled with many hours of serving everyone except God, who was the one who knew He was calling me and whom I wanted to accompany, but with whom it was difficult to make room among so many commitments and attend to my children’s vacation wishes.
And so we reached Easter Sunday, which we spent stuck in the car, sending Whatsapps wishing a Happy Easter and listening to a rushed and little enjoyed Mass upon arriving in Madrid.
Well, what to say? That there was always a
lingering sadness stuck between memories and photos for having missed walking that path beside the suffering Jesus.
A month ago I prayed: “Lord, give me a real Holy Week, very close to you. I don’t know how to do it.”
What to say? God always surprises me.
Here I am, thanking Him nonstop, knowing that this is the Lent we will remember all our lives, wanting not to waste a second of sticking to You Lord.
When they said the Churches were closing I thought with horror:
“Jesus alone again in the Garden of Olives”
But I was totally wrong and it had to be Him who explained to me how mistaken I was.
Last Tuesday, praying the sorrowful mysteries of the Rosary, I felt God speaking to me in each mystery. In the Garden of Olives I saw the loneliness of so many sick people alone in hospital beds, I saw the loneliness of families leaving their relatives at the emergency room doors not knowing if they will see them again.
In the scourging I saw the pain from illness and separation from loved ones, I saw that we all wear the Crown of Thorns, torn apart by so much pain around us, and the Cross of Christ: carrying it, some with more or less weight, but all carrying it. And finally, Jesus made me see that this year we will all be at Golgotha watching His elevation to the Cross.
Hesitantly and with much respect, feeling so much pain that overwhelms my soul, I thank God for coming out in such a scandalous way to rescue us from our neglect.
Behind that door God will be embracing all those who have left and our duty is to pray “without stopping” so that that embrace may happen.
The question “how do I want to live these days?” is already answered: in continuous prayer. “Pray without stopping, pray without stopping.”
