Be Transformed

We will be taking a break from our series “The Consummate Prayer: Reflections on the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great.” We will resume after Holy Week. Even though we will have completed the Lenten journey by then, it is certainly worthy to finish this series on the beautiful and complete, consummate prayer, that St. Basil offers us.

Holy Week begins tomorrow. The journey is upon us.

There is a difference between being informed and being transformed. To be informed is to be exposed to information. To be transformed is to allow that information or that experience to change you. Holy Week can be approached in many ways. It can be avoided entirely. It can be “seen.” It can be “experienced.” It can be a time when we hear the information again. Or it can be a time when we let the information transform and change us. The choice rests with each of us.  I hope you are planning on surrendering a good portion of your weekly schedule to God for this upcoming week. Hopefully you have made a Holy Week plan, are preparing to receive Communion several times, are opening your ears to listen to what God will speak to YOU, and you’ll participate and sing. Add all these together, and you are ready to be transformed.

What does transformed mean?

To be transformed means to be changed.

There are three ways one can look at Holy Week. One can see it as a series of rituals we do each year, and can “march through the paces” (or worse yet, just show up for a few of them) and take very little out of Holy Week. We can have almost a zombie-like participation, being present in body without any real understanding or desire for understanding.

The second way is to look at Holy Week as a vacation. Certainly if you attend each night, it will be a nice break from television and other things we do in our spare time. To disengage from the world on a vacation, or to attend the services of Holy Week is a good thing. Vacation provides for a period of relaxation. And Holy Week can do the same. The only problem with vacations are that they end. And it seems that very quickly they are forgotten as we jump back into our regular hectic lives.

The third way to look at Holy Week, and this is the way I am going to try to look at it myself this year, and encourage you to do the same, is to allow yourself to be transformed in some way because of the experience. This will allow you to take the journey of Holy Week, its purpose, its focus, its many messages, and have them as part of your life long after Holy Week is over.

When Christ taught the disciples, for example, about the parable of the Talents (Matthew 25: 14-30), He taught them that everyone has a talent, a purpose, an ability to glorify God while helping others. This is, in fact, the purpose to our life on earth. And we all have the ability to realize this purpose. Everyone has a talent. Holy Monday night and Holy Tuesday morning have talents as a theme. Come to church to one of these services, and reflect on your talents and how you can better use them to glorify God and serve others.

We are all wearied and exhausted from life. Come Holy Wednesday evening for Holy Unction and let the comfort of the prayers “wash over you” like a warm bath, cleansing you not only of sin but of anger and hopelessness. The words of these prayers are therapy for the wounded soul.

On Holy Thursday evening we will relearn through the reading of sacred Scripture how to be a good friend, that the greatest thing one can do is lay down His life for a friend. And we will then hear again how Jesus did exactly that for His friends, and for us.

And on Holy Saturday evening, we are given the opportunity for a new start, for all things to begin anew in the Light of Christ’s Resurrection.

As we are about to embark on our journey, as we “pack our bags” in anticipation for its beginning, let’s leave room in our suitcases for the gifts we will discover along the way. Leave room in our hearts for deeper levels of faith. And leave room in our hearts for Christ to enter and to transform them.

Have a blessed Holy Week!