Over the next three weeks Sudbury Catholic Schools students along with their parents/guardians families, teachers and Board staff will be preparing to celebrate the Triduum.

The greatest mysteries of the redemption are celebrated yearly by the Church beginning with the evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday and ending with Vespers of Easter Sunday. This time is called “the triduum of the crucified, buried and risen;” it is also called the “Easter Triduum” because during it is celebrated the paschal mystery, that is, the passing of the Lord from this world to his Father. The Church, by the celebration of this mystery through liturgical signs and sacramentals, is united to Christ, her spouse, in intimate communion.

The Easter fast is sacred on the first two days of the Triduum, in which, according to ancient tradition, the Church fasts “because the Spouse has been taken away.” Good Friday is a day of fasting and abstinence; it is also recommended that Holy Saturday be so observed, so that the Church, with uplifted and welcoming heart, be ready to celebrate the joys of the Sunday of the Resurrection.

The Easter Triduum is prepared for by Lent and it is prolonged for fifty days of the Easter Season. The Lenten Season has two purposes: a) to prepare catechumens to celebrate the paschal mystery through the sacraments of initiation; b) to prepare the faithful to celebrate the paschal mystery by penance for the renewal of their baptismal promises.

After centuries of neglect, Pope Pius XII restored the Triduum to its rightful place as the culmination of the liturgical year. The only way to really understand the Triduum is to savour it by active participation. In song, through ritual and sensory experience, the single, three day long liturgy plunges us into the Paschal Mystery. Our participation in the liturgical act is, then, the opportunity for us to enter into the mystery of Christ’s dying and rising. The life of the Christian is to be lived in union with Christ who “dying destroyed our death, rising restored our life.” It is the mystery of dying and rising with Christ that is at the heart of the Easter mystery.

The word CELEBRATE means to make something unique. It means to hold up to the world in a unique way something in which we believe. With this in mind, students and staff of our Sudbury Catholic Schools will join Catholics around the world in celebrating the beginning of Lent on February 6, 2008 – also known as Ash Wednesday.

The Lenten season is a gift of healing and renewal. Like our Hebrew ancestors, we sometimes struggle with desert experiences for a long time. Before Jesus started his public ministry, he withdrew into the desert. Like his ancestors, his experience was a struggle. Being in the desert is not easy. One would not call it a celebration, but if a celebration holds up to the world a belief in a unique way, then these desert experiences are truly celebrations. Both the Hebrews and Jesus discovered a gift. They discovered something about themselves, their relationship with God and their relationship with others. They discovered that God is constantly calling us to live in a relationship. God presents us with many opportunities to grow in this relationship. Time and again we might fail but time and again God offers us the opportunity to renew this relationship . . . Lent is such a time . . .

Lent is a time of healing. It is a time to remember and to embrace memories. By embracing memories, we open our hearts to healing. The good memories are easy to recall and relive but we would rather forget the painful ones. Memories of being isolated, neglected, ridiculed, unloved, misunderstood or devalued are part of all our personal stories. Our willingness to be open to the wounds is a way of taking ownership of the truth and in doing so we that can start the journey of healing. Taking ownership of the wound helps personal healing and it can help individuals to become the instrument of healing to others.

But Lent is not the end! Lent is a celebration which prepares us to celebrate the feast of feasts, EASTER. With God, life and love have the final word. As St. Paul said, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor heights, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”(Romans. 8:38-39)

Enjoy the celebration!

This year, January 18 to 25, 2008 marks the 100th anniversary of Christian Unity Week. In 1908 at Graymoor in Garrison, New York, the Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Atonement held the first Church Unity Octave and have prayed for Christian unity, “without ceasing,” ever since. Christians around the world celebrate the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity together, with the encouragement of the World Council of Churches’ Faith and Order Commission and the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

Jesus prayed that all might be one as He and the Father are one. Jesus broke down barriers which separated people from each other. He gathered around him people from all walks of life. St Paul teaches that in Jesus there is neither male or female, master or slave, Greek or Jew. Paul became known as the Apostle to the Gentiles and he encourages us to “pray without ceasing.” This is the theme for this year’s Christian Unity Week. This is a great time to turn to God and ask for His Spirit to unite us, not only with Him but also with each other.

How can we promote Christian Unity? We can pray. Never doubt the efficacy of prayer if it is entered into with a sincere heart. Jesus told us, “Ask and it shall be given to you. Knock and the door will be open.” We can be attentive to others. We can listen to others. We can take time to learn something about another’s faith. We can take time to be with others and pray and celebrate together.

During the week of prayer for Christian Unity, attend a prayer service. Services, along with other Christian Unity resources, are listed on the Christian Unity section of the DSSM website.

To further reflect on Christian Unity Week 2008, visit http://www.weekofprayer2008.org, or order the Novalis resource ‘Pray Without Ceasing’.

Everyone likes a good play. A good play draws you in. It keeps you perched on the edge of your seat wondering how things will turn out. A good play has characters that you cheer or jeer. A good play fills you with a sense of excitement and wonder and resolves itself in a way that leaves you feeling satisfied. I am sure everyone reading this article can or has by now filled in the blank with their own good play and recalls all of the feelings it evoked.

Advent is the beginning of a good play. It is the beginning of the story of Jesus. Like a good beginning, Advent draws us into the mystery of the story through all of our senses. Music, candles, gestures and symbols create an atmosphere that tells us something different is happening. Stories about surprising events of births unexpected tell us that we are about to enter into a time that is very different. Voices from the past fill us with hope as we struggle with challenges of poverty, violence and exclusion. The beginning of the play seems to hold out a promise of better times to come.

Advent is only the beginning. The drama unfolds as we move from the birth of Jesus to his young adulthood, baptism and ministry of preaching and healing and ends with his passion, death and resurrection. The drama of Jesus is retold during the year and in different ways we are drawn into this drama and encouraged to see the drama as our own story. Participants are uplifted, saddened, inspired, challenged and comforted as we sing, pray, listen to stories and reach out to others in service.

There are high points in the drama such as Christmas, Epiphany, Ash Wednesday, Holy Week, the Triduum, Pentecost and Ascension Sunday but each Sunday is an opportunity to relive the whole drama and here once again the gestures, symbols, music and stories are a means of pointing to a deeper reality as a good play should.

What makes drama engaging is that in some way we recognize our own story in
The Story. The more we recognize our story in the Jesus Story, the more engaged we will become in the drama. Each of us has experienced times of insecurity, exclusion, doubt and fear. Jesus experienced all of these but his essential message which he called the good news of the kingdom confronted all these feelings and provided a radical alternative to a way of live which drags us down.

So, let the play begin. Become engaged in the drama making the Story your story. Take time to see how the events in the life of Jesus parallel your own life events. Take heart knowing that there is a resolution which will leave you satisfied much more than you could ever have expected.