We are entering Holy Week, we accompany Jesus during these days, these days are given to us to examine our hearts, to give thanks for so much love, to learn to love…

Jesus goes to Jerusalem with his closest ones, with the men and women with whom he had traveled the roads of Israel announcing the Good News, performing miracles, sharing paths, meals, life; men and women to whom he spoke in the intimacy of so many nights around a fire, friends, brothers, messengers, heirs of a mission. Today we become part of that small community that will celebrate the dinner, that will pray in Gethsemane, and perhaps also part of those who flee in the face of the danger of being a follower and watch from afar as their friend and teacher hangs on the cross.

It is the story of a true, sincere, total love, a love that restores, that liberates, that becomes a path of life, that reveals itself as the key to achieving our personal and communal fullness, that breaks our molds, that always asks more from us, but not as a demand but as a yearning that develops within us as we come to know the heart of the Lord, His feelings, His message, His style, the fruits of His passage through our existence, through our world.

May the beautiful liturgy of these days, the heartfelt celebrations, help us glimpse “the truth of our love” not so much through the tears we shed or the fasts we observe, but by looking with humility and honesty at how we love in the concrete and in our daily lives. Whom do I love? How do I love? Whom do I love much, whom do I love less or don’t love at all? Let’s look at Jesus, let’s contemplate how He is loving us and how far He is loving us… let’s look around us and let ourselves be moved by the need for love of so many. Holy Week is not just an experience between Jesus and me; it is an experience of a believing family, of humanity in need of His love, of His salvation, of His hope. It is a lived experience that commits us to others, to their pain, to their loneliness, to their helplessness, and to their vulnerability.

In the beginning of this Holy Week, let us ask ourselves, can I stay? Will I remain up to the end? Let’s look deep into our hearts and decide on this first day of Holy Week whom will I seat at the table for supper, for whom will I pray in Gethsemane, whom I will accompany in their pain, for whom will I stay?

May we remain just as Mary did, from womb to tomb, from the cradle to the cross. Let us ask her that we may have the courage to stay, until we become the dream of God.

Blessed Holy Week!