Dear Friends,

On the outskirts of Jerusalem
the donkey waited.
Not especially brave, or filled with understanding,
he stood and waited.

How horses, turned out into the meadow,
leap with delight!
How doves, released from their cages,
clatter away, splashed with sunlight.

But the donkey, tied to a tree as usual, waited.
Then he let himself be led away.
Then he let the stranger mount.

Never had he seen such crowds!
And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen.
Still, he was what he had always been: small, dark, obedient.

I hope, finally, he felt brave.
I hope, finally, he loved the man who rode so lightly upon him,
as he lifted one dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward.

I stumbled across this poem by Mary Oliver, titled The Poet Thinks About the Donkey, which felt so appropriate for the start of our Holy Week journey.

On Sunday we will enter into Holy Week. For Christians, this is the most sacred, the most holy, the most meaning-filled week of the entire year. Each year we are invited to walk with Jesus as he enters into Jerusalem to rejoicing. Each year we see how that energy has changed and by Good Friday he is dead. Each year we sit on Holy Saturday with the knowledge that humanity killed God. Each year we celebrate the miraculous, incomprehensible Resurrection. Each year the Triduum (the great three days of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil) changes our perception of time with three days of one, continuous, unbroken, stretched-out liturgy. It was not an easy journey for Jesus. It is not an easy journey for us.

During Holy Week the church asks her members for more. Of course it is not stress-free. Jobs, family obligations, and general busyness make it harder than ever to carve out the time to mark this week in special ways. But, that is just what we are asked to do. We know that God is always with us. But, this week, as a community centered on the person of Jesus of Nazareth, it is our turn to be there for God. To stand beside Jesus in joy, to sit with him at table, to witness the humiliation of his arrest and trial, to stand at the foot of the cross with Mary, his mother, to remember the day of desolation, and rise with him again in the tomb.

Much like the donkey, we may not feel brave or filled with understanding. We may, like the donkey find ourselves unsure of the path. And yet, we love the same person, who rode so lightly on the donkey’s back. It is out of this love that we are at this moment and it is out of love that we step forward alongside our Savior now. I pray that this week you all may find days replete with meaning and laden with holiness.

Peace,