The View Up Here

Tomorrow is Passion (Palm) Sunday, the start of Holy Week. I'm very pleased to be singing in choir at my parish, and I hope that the experience will remain an inspiring one through the coming months. I believe it was St. Augustine who first commented that "A person who sings prays twice."   I haven't written here much since I've been busy with work (a full time job and an on-going string of free lance editing for which I am very grateful). A quick update: I'm still on track for paying off my last piece of personal debt by the end of June. Yay! I will be returning to NYS mid-June for my cousin's ordination (he is becoming a Catholic priest). At that time I will visit friends and family, and nose around some of my old stomping grounds in Elmira.  I will also be visiting the Transfiguration Monastery in Windsor, NY when I'm back for my summer visit. I'm very excited about finding them; interestingly, they were founded around the same time...

Today I'd like to share a reflection from the Sisters of Notre Dame. I've been receiving weekly Lenten Reflections from them on email, and today's meditation for Palm Sunday is especially moving for me. My prayer is that I, all of us, can unconditionally say 'Yes' to what God has prepared for us in our lives, just as Yeshua Messiah did, trusting that our greater good is always in God's mind, even when we cannot see it ourselves. "Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." (Mt. 21.9) With these words in song or chant Catholics around the world will process into the Church on Palm Sunday waving palm branches which have been liturgically blessed as "sacramentals." The increase in church-going folks on this day, demonstrates how Catholics like to get their palms but more, how this Sunday transitions us from Lent into Holy Week and to a closer focus on the Passion of Christ. What we recall...