There are so many wonderful things about the season of Easter. Especially for me, the excuses to say and write ALLELUJAH at every turning! One of the things I really treasure, though, is that from Easter Day through and including the Sunday of Pentecost, we read from the Acts of the Apostles. To read brief sections of Acts here and there over three years means that we don’t get a real understanding of what was happening.  So I encourage you to take a few hours and read the Acts of the Apostles straight through.

So we have now arrived at the threshold of Holy Week. In ancient Celtic mythology, it was believed that the “in-between” times and “in-between” places were the most powerful. So there are reports of things being done “neither at day nor at night” and “neither on land nor on sea”. That’s very much what Palm Sunday is like! We start out almost feeling like we’ve left the somberness of Lent behind. But it’s not long until we come to the reading of the great Passion Gospel. Heaviness descends. Wait. What is happening?

This is the last Sunday before we enter into the solemnities of Holy Week. The Gospel gives us a hint of things to come. Expanding on that hint, I’m attaching a “Field Guide to Holy Week”, which lists the services and gives some ideas of what to expect. Please take a look at put as many of these services on your calendar as possible. Easter is ever so much more meaningful when we accompany Jesus through the last days of his life, rather than hop-scotching from Palm Sunday to Easter.