The moment has arrived, Tomorrow we will begin what is known as the Triduum, the three days that stand at the heart of the Easter season, days of intense immersion in the fundamental mystery of what it is to be Christian.
More than 40 days ago, 43 days if we want to be precise, we joined with all the Christians in the world in penance and fasting in preparation to celebrate Holy Week.
Here in the All Saints community, we had a great variety of opportunities to prepare ourselves, and each of us decided to do, or stop doing, something special during the Lent season.
Everything that we did was with the intention of accompanying our brother and leader Jesus Christ in his path of suffering and pain; a path ending this Holy Week with his death on the cross.
Were you able to, all the time, 24 hours a day, and during the 40 days of Lent, be 100% connected with Christ’s pain and suffering?
If you did it, then you are prepared for what is ahead, and if you were like me, who did not do everything I wanted to do, I have one of the best news of the Holy Week, God loves you with the same intense love that you were loved 43 days ago, why? Because God knows that as humans we are all “work in progress.”
What we can declare today with certainty, is what the Apostle Paul shares about himself in the letter to the Philippians when he says, “We have not reached the goal yet.”
“Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:12-14)
Let us follow the advice of the Apostle Paul, first to recognize that in the eyes of God we do not have to be perfect, and that the most important thing is for us to press forward. Let us forget all that is left behind (especially everything we could not do during Lent), and let us make an effort to achieve what is before us, to win the “Celestial prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus .”
Like the Apostle Paul, I invite you to make the effort to press on toward the Triduum, sharing in the suffering of our leader and brother Jesus Christ. I encourage you to clear your schedules of unnecessary activities. Our minds and hearts should be fixed on Jesus and what He did for us. Let us bear the Cross so that may be worthy of wearing the crown He wore.
Because we have not reached the goal yet!!
Antonio Gallardo is the Pastor for Latino Ministries at All Saints Church in Pasadena.
