For years, Holy Week has been a potentially intense time for me. For me, Holy Week, starting on Palm Sunday, feels like going through a tunnel. It’s going to be dark and you’re going to feel claustrophobic, but you know there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The only way through is through.

I was reminded of this intensity at mass this past Palm Sunday. During the reading of the Gospel with all of the parts and the congregation reading our parts along in unison, my youngest daughter was asking to leave and go outside. She said her tummy hurt. Knowing the headache and fiasco it takes to leave a pew, especially during a standing portion of the mass, I told her we’d go when we sat back down after the Gospel. In hindsight I wish I had taken her out sooner.

My youngest is a wild and strong girl, but she is also very sensitive. She cares for others deeply and she can be affected by things very intensely. One thing I’ve learned is music that is supposed to invoke fear, or any other scary emotion, really weighs on her. It does its job and she feels it and can get very scared just due to the music.

When I took her outside for a breather, I asked her what was bothering her. She said it was the parts where everyone read. It was scary to her. It immediately dawned on me- the intensity of the week we were headed into. After a short break, my daughter and I went back in during the Creed.

Now, Holy Week is not about events. There are plenty to take part in, but they are not what the week is about. The week is about continuing to journey closer to Christ and to be more like Him and to celebrate His victory over death and sin. But these events are tools to help us “enter in.” And the theatrics began on Palm Sunday. It was palpable- not just the voices in unison, but what those voices said, are some of the most aggressive parts of the Gospel. “Crucify him! Crucify him!” “His blood be upon us and upon our children.” In our conversation, we compared the voices speaking as one to the villain “It” in the movie adaptation of “A Wrinkle in Time.” The voice is layered over itself a multitude of times to make it sound robust, and it has the effect of being ominous. 

Taking this all in reminded me of the most intense Good Friday of my life.

If I remember correctly, the year was 2005. My girlfriend, now my wife, had been dating for about a month and a half. She was not Catholic at the time. We had made plans to go to the Galleria Mall in Houston on Friday, but I told her it needed to be after Veneration of the Cross. I had to explain this event to her because she had never experienced nor heard of it before. I went to the Veneration of the Cross by myself. I sat fairly close to the front. The trigger for me that day, and still to this day, was when the choir began to sing “Were You There (When they Crucified My Lord)”. It was at that point things began to get heavy for me. I didn’t know what came over me, but I had this visceral feeling of loss. After I went up to the massive cross our parish uses, that had been processed in on the shoulders of multiple men, and took my turn either kissing it or placing my hand on it and saying a quick prayer, it all cemented in. I felt like I was at a funeral. I was at a funeral for someone I was extremely close to, and I had just lost them. I have never wept like that in public since. It was uncontrollable. 

By the time it was all over my shirt was covered in tears and snot. I felt lost. I did not know what to do with myself. All I wanted to do was to be close to that person again. So what did I do? On Good Friday? I ran to our perpetual adoration chapel. I wasn’t thinking. All I knew was that was where Jesus would be. I knew I could find Him there although I had just lost Him. I had just been to His funeral. But He wasn’t there. I was in such panic I forgot that the tabernacles were emptier until Easter Vigil. I was broken. I had to call Erika, my girlfriend, and tell her I needed to cancel our plans. I was not okay. She was worried and didn’t quite understand. I told her everything was okay; I just needed to be alone and process what had happened.

That has never happened to me again. But every Good Friday I go in a little nervous and ready for anything.

I feel like Palm Sunday is that exhilaration of entering into the tunnel. You’re excited and ready for the journey through. You can still see the light behind you. On Good Friday, beginning on Holy Thursday evening, the light fades and you are in darkness and peril. Will you even make it to the end? The light is not visible at this moment. But you have to persevere through it. Holy Saturday is a day of quiet darkness and uncertainty, crescendo-ing with the Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday with Jesus’ triumph over death and sin.

It’s a lot. It’s a long, deep, dark, heavy tunnel. But I challenge you to enter in. Enter in each day as much as you can. Take time for silent prayer. Read the scriptures. Try and make it to one of the Triduum services. But keep your eyes on Jesus.

Other than Palm Sunday, the Triduum, and Easter Sunday, we have a family tradition we’ve been doing since the girls were little. We watch the movie “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.” Try it out for yourself or your family. I hope you have a blessed Holy Week and a victorious Easter!

"If a willing Victim that has committed no treachery is killed in a traitor's stead, the Stone Table will crack; and even death itself would turn backwards." - The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe