Today begins the most solemn week of the whole Christendom, Holy Week. This year’s Holy Week will probably be the most memorable of all the Holy Week celebrations in my twenty years as a priest. We have journeyed forty days this season of Lent, as we moved through Lent, we intensified our prayer, fasting and acts of charity. At the same time, another phenomenon intensified during this season, the spread of CoVid 19. It spread to a rate never experienced before in our life time, until it finally reached a pandemic proportion. At the end of Lent and as we enter Holy Week, I pray that we all have experienced intense grace, not being able to receive Jesus in the Eucharist hopefully increased our longing for that full communion with Jesus, in His Body and Blood. Let us continue to pray with a fervent heart and soul, the Spiritual Communion Prayer. “My Jesus, I believe that You are present in the Most Holy Sacrament. I love You above all things, and I desire to receive You into my soul. Since I cannot at this moment receive You sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. I embrace You as if You were already there and unite myself wholly to You. Never permit me to be separated from You. Amen.”

In this Gospel, there are many known Jewish burial practices that was cited. The dead are immediately buried on the same day. The corpse is washed and wrapped in burial cloths, followed by a public procession to the burial site usually a cave tomb. Then the seven days of mourning, where the immediate family of the deceased are taken care of by the neighbors who take turn visiting them. The length of mourning can extend to 30 days, and in some instances for a year. After a year, the bones are collected and for those who can afford it, are placed in a burial box called an ossuary.

Beginning in John 7, when Jesus went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Tabernacle, He became a marked man, His presence created different reactions. Many people are starting to believe that He is the Messiah but they cannot reconcile the fact that He is from Galilee. Because Scriptures said that the Messiah will come from Bethlehem, the City of David. If only they knew that He was indeed born in Bethlehem. In John 8, Jesus had to leave the temple because of the Jewish leader’s instigated threat to kill Him. John 9 builds on this contrast of pros and cons with Jesus with the account of the blind man. After the incident of the woman caught in adultery, in Jn. 8:12 Jesus says, “I am the light of the world...” The whole of Jn. 9 presents what it means for Jesus to be “light of the world.” Two key concepts of His being the “light”, first, He revealed Himself as the light and life. Second, the presence of Jesus creates a sense of standard, an occasion for judgement, His good Words and Deeds present a contrast to what evil men do.

What do we do when we’re facing an upcoming big event, celebration, or special occasion in our lives? We prepare for it. Holy Week and Easter are “big events” in the liturgical year of the Church and in the spiritual life of a Christian. So, as Christians, we prepare spiritually for these through the forty days of Lent. This means that, during Lent, we rededicate ourselves to prayer.

There are as many ways to pray as there are prayers in this world, but a few prayer methods can help us in particular to spiritually prepare ourselves during Lent:

1. Make your abstinence a prayer-in-action.

For the past week we have been hearing of the news about the highly contagious Novel Coronavirus nCoV, and how it has spread and infected thousands, the great number of which are in main land China, but have spread to many other countries. Since then I have received so many inquiries and suggestions of taking precautionary measures, also, with the flu season still around. For this reason, St. Rose will be implementing the following: Based on the Flu Policy of the Diocese of Phoenix, Level I: (heightened awareness, voluntary precautions).

1. Encourage the Faithful who are sick to stay home. Though it is true that it is a grave matter to miss mass on Sundays and holydays, this never applies to those who are ill, especially those who are contagious or display flu-like symptoms.
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