We come now, with Palm Sunday, to the beginning of Holy Week. I recently read of a very interesting approach to Holy Week. I like the idea that what was happening ‘out there’ and ‘back then’ as Christ entered Jerusalem, is also happening ‘in here’ and right now’. We can say that there is a “Jerusalem of the heart”. This inner life also has its temple and its palaces, its places of corruption, its gardens of rest, its seat of judgment.
Here Malcolm Guite invites us to walk with Christ. And let him walk with you on both an outer and an inner journey that leads to the cross and beyond. Read and reflect …
Now to the gate of my Jerusalem,
The seething holy city of my heart,
The saviour comes. But will I welcome him?
Oh crowds of easy feelings make a start;
They raise their hands, get caught up in the singing, And think the battle won. Too soon they’ll find
The challenge, the reversal he is bringing
Changes their tune. I know what lies behind
The surface flourish that so quickly fades; Self-interest, and fearful guardedness,
The hardness of the heart, its barricades,
And at the core, the dreadful emptiness
Of a perverted temple. Jesus come
Break my resistance and make me your home.
From Sounding the Seasons, by Malcolm Guite, Canterbury Press 2012
Please make every effort to take part in our Holy Week services, especially the Sacred Triduum, of Maundy Thursday evening, Good Friday afternoon and Holy Saturday night.
Fr Matthew
