“This is the lentiest Lent I ever lented.” I remember seeing that quote last year at this time and thinking, “Well, ain’t that the truth?!” After our lenty Lent, Holy Week offered empty churches with closed doors, and it all culminated in a sad little Easter. I spent it home alone. My Easter dinner was a frozen pizza I choked down during a failed Zoom call with my family. Last year’s Easter even felt a little lenty.

And here we are on Palm Sunday a year later, the onset of Holy Week. Over these holy days, we’ll witness Jesus enduring every kind of suffering: emotional, physical, and spiritual. As we engage with each detail of the Passion, moving forward and back around again to each moment, it might bring up some of our own life experiences. It might remind us of the past or draw comparisons with the present. That’s a good thing. That’s what it’s supposed to do. The Passion is not just a re-enactment of what happened to the historical Jesus all those years ago. We commemorate the original events and acknowledge that they are still happening, continuously unfolding in each of us. The invitation of Holy Week is to pray through the suffering of the living Christ, the Christ who loves, suffers, and rises in us individually and communally. Christ is with us in whatever we’re experiencing. Christ is very close with us, especially right now. As we move through this sacred time, I hope we open ourselves to Christ’s presence, sharing each grief and struggle and heartbreak.

How are you feelings this year as you enter Holy Week? I feel grateful to be able to attend church services and an outside Way of the Cross, and I hope to see my family, or, at least, a few of them. I’m looking forward to a better Easter than last year, but I still feel the absence of some things, a twinge of sadness and longing, as well as a lingering anxiety. I miss my extended family, community, friends, and my former parish, a community that kind of disintegrated over this year. I miss some of the rituals and the well-choreographed grandeur that used to define the Triduum, but on the other hand, maybe it’s fitting just as it is. The original Passion was anything but curated, just like our lives are anything but neatly controlled. Our suffering is not a scripted Passion Play but an unfolding bit by bit of uncertainty, growth, helplessness, and trust. Given what we’ve been living through, this year’s Holy Week may be the most passionate Passion we’ve ever passioned. And just as God was with Jesus through every moment of his Passion, God is with us too.

Also, the Passion is not only about suffering; there’s grace in it too. We call it the “Passion,” rather than something like “The Great Suffering.” We call Thursday and Saturday “holy,” and we call Friday “good.” Our naming of these days acknowledges that the end of this season is not an end but a beginning, and there are gifts in our well-passioned Passions. Even my sad little Easter of last year had some gift in it. I missed a lot of people and traditions, but our Sunday small group had a wonderful sharing. We were all grieving so many losses, but we were together. We cried and laughed and shared from our hearts, and although we were together virtually, we were present to each other in a very real way. Although this year is not the same as years past, I do anticipate plenty of gifts all through these holy days. I will look for blessings and for all the ways that God lets me know that God is with me.

So, let’s passion as we’ve never passioned before, naming our sorrows as well as our joys, and trusting that God is moving us toward new life. Just as we suffer with Christ and Christ suffers in us, we know that we also rise with Christ and Christ in us.

By Sister Leslie Keener, CDP

Sister Leslie Keener, CDP is the director of God Space, a community-building spirituality ministry in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. She’s a Sister of Divine Providence with a Masters in Ministry and a Certificate in Spiritual Direction and Retreats from Creighton University. She directs retreats, meets with people for spiritual direction, and serves as the vocation director for her community. She also serves on the Coordinating Council of Spiritual Directors International. She enjoys music, dancing, meaningful conversations, and Holy Week.