"Though there's pain in the offering"

Here we are, the last Friday of Lent. This holy season concludes, as it does each year, with Evening Prayer next Thursday. Evening Prayer on Holy Thursday ushers in the shortest of liturgical seasons: the Sacred Triduum.

The Sacred Triduum constiutes something like our Christian high holy days. It might be more accurate to say "our Christian high holy day." Holy Thursday's Mass of the Lord's Supper has no concluding rites, no dismissal. Instead, we process with the Blessed Sacrament to the chapel of repose. Good Friday has no introductory rites, but begins with the Collect. Good Friday, too, ends without a dismissal. We're not dismissed until the end of the great Paschal Vigil, which both brings the Sacred Triduum to an end and inagurates the season of Easter.

All Catholics really should make an to participate in the entire Triduum. Do it once and you will want to keep doing it.

For me, it's been an eventful year so far and an vibrant Lent. About halfway through, I began working for the Church full-time, which event was more than a year in the making. To say that I am feeling a bit overwhelmed at present would be to put it mildly. Nonetheless, I remain excited and forward looking. It's an opportunity to extend my Lenten discipline of being gentle with myself!

Earlier this week, I had a beautiful experience during my morning walk. It was a gorgeous spring day. I decided to listen to some glory and praise music, as it matched my mood and weather. As I noted in my homily last Sunday, we don't observe Lent, or even Good Friday, pretending that Christ isn't risen from the dead. That level of pretense belies Christian realism. Besides, as Richard Foster noted in his seminal work, Celebration of Discipline, "Joy is the keynote of all the Disciplines" Just as "happiness," at least as it is popularly understood, shouldn't be confused eudaimonia, neither should it be mistaken for joy. Happiness is fleeting. Joy abides. Happiness is superficial. Joy runs deep.

Anyway, our traditio is then-Sister Cristina Scuccia with an acoustic version (suitable for its simplicity) of "Blessed Be Your Name." In or around 2022, Cristina left religious life after 15 years. She's emphatic that the time she spent as an Ursiline sister were "splendid years." She is also insistent that she has not abandoned the faith. While we don't use the "A-word" during Lent, we do praise Jesus Christ!