1  The familiar passion narrative is one in which we all find phrases that speak deeply to us.  Let a slow reading of the story touch you and lead you to prayer.

2  It is a story of how far Jesus was prepared to go to change our minds and hearts and encourage us to believe in God’s love for us.  What aspect of the story has this persuasive power for you?  How have you been persuaded to believe in human love by the self-sacrificing actions of another?

3  You may find it helpful to enter into the story by taking the place of one of the many characters in the narrative.  How does this help the story to come alive for you?

John Byrne OSA          Email john@orlagh.ie

Questions people ask

Q.  What did Jesus suffer in the agony in Gethsemane?
A.  The hypostatic union, the unity of divine and human natures in Jesus, is beyond our experience, yet on the ordinary human level we can understand his fear at the prospect of the suffering he was soon to undergo.  He suffered in leaving his mother and in thinking of the sword of sorrow piercing her soul, as Simeon had predicted.  Traditional meditation books pictured all the filth of sin sweeping over him in a torrent.  Deepest of all was the darkness of spirit he suffered in becoming sin, as St Paul put it.  The dark dereliction he suffered was that awful sense of alienation from God which is the ultimate pain of hell.

Fr Silvester O’Flynn OFM Cap          Email silvesteroflynn@gmail.com

The Deep End:  Taking up your cross

From triumph to agony.  It’s a time where the Temple of the moneychangers is cleansed.  A time where bread is broken, friendships betrayed and denied.  Often we try to place ourselves in these scenes and wonder, what would I have done?  Would I have run away, betrayed, kept awake, denied or stayed at the cross until the end?  When we join a procession or a protest, (holding a palm branch or a placard), we are committed.

Nevertheless, we also enter the stories of our own Passion.  We might want the long Gospel to be over quickly, but we must try not to miss the journey that this week offers us:
‘You have to incorporate your pain into yourself.  This is what Jesus means when he asks you to take up your cross.  He encourages you to recognize and embrace your unique suffering and to trust that your way to salvation lies therein.  Taking up your cross means, first of all, befriending your wounds and letting them reveal to you your own truth.’  (Henry Nouwen)

Jane Mellett          Email janemellett@yahoo.com