Whose shoes?

What on earth was Peter thinking? How did Our Lady cope? What did Simon of Cyrene think about being pulled out of the crowd?

Last week I offered some thoughts about where precisely the events of Holy Week happened – on a donkey, a wooden table, a wooden cross, a stony tomb. This week I’d like to suggest you use your imagination again and put yourself in the shoes of someone involved in Holy Week. Take it slowly. Imagine their background or “backstory” as we say nowadays! What did they feel as they experienced what happened that week in Jerusalem. Look up where they appear in the New Testament, compare the four gospels. Here as some suggestions of people…

The High Priest, one of the soldiers, Pontius Pilate, Herod
Peter, Judas, John the Apostle, Mary Magdalen.
Simon of Cyrene, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, Veronica (careful, she doesn’t actually appear in the Bible!) What about an average man or woman in the crowd.
And, of course, there is Our Lady.

Put yourself in their shoes and, having maybe read up a bit, let the Lord guide your imagination to help bring Holy Week alive for you. God can work through our imagination as well as any other way.

Maybe you will feel like writing down some of your thoughts. This would be for yourself, of course, though I would be very interested in reading such reflections. Let’s really help our celebration of Holy Week and Easter this year of 2018 come alive.

And, most of all, make every effort to come to the central services of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and

Easter, especially the Easter Vigil and First Mass of Easter.

Fr Matthew