March 25, 2013
by Kim Pierce
Holy Week? What’s that? This was me three years ago. I was searching for something bigger than me and little did I know what the future had in store. Fast forward about a year and I was at the Easter Vigil receiving the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist for the first time. I had just gone through RCIA and knew that I was on that path that I was destined to be on. But this all came after sorrow and searching. But my sorrow seemed meager compared to what I came to learn during Holy Week.
When I was asked to write a short reflection on what Holy Week means to me, I was happy to accept the task at hand. You see, Lent is my favorite time of year. I feel as though it gives me a chance to work on the most important friendship that I will ever have in my life…the one that I have with God. I have come to learn that Lent is a time of love but also a time of attack by the devil. I am sure that we all have felt it. We are all working on strengthening our relationship with God, increasing our prayer life, when all the sudden you feel temptation to sin, or like you are distant from God. I think that we all have felt it from time to time. How do we come back from it? This Lent has been exceptionally hard for me. I have felt those attacks over and over, but I would continue to pray to God and invite him into my heart and heal my brokenness. With these attacks has come a deeper understanding of my faith and my friendship with God.
No matter how I feel, I know that God gave us his son and that he died for our sins. There is no greater love and I feel humbled and blessed that someone did this for me. Holy Week reminds me of the ultimate sacrifice and love that you can have for someone. We all mess up, myself included, but God loves us unconditionally and never fails. I still cannot fathom this. I have to remind myself of this all the time, but when I participate in Holy Week, God’s love and sacrifice brings me to tears. It’s hard to put into words something that touches you to your core, but Holy Week does this year after year. I work all year and during Lent to strengthen my relationship with God, and Holy Week reminds me of just how much God loves me. I am unworthy and I know this, but he loves me no matter what. This is pretty awesome…to say the least.
Peace, Kim Pierce
