For many years, I found it hard to deal with the huge difference between my ideal Holy Week and my real Holy Week. This is the week! The culmination of all of our preparations, our prayers and sacrifices! Truly, this is the time to go so deep into the mysteries of our Faith, meditate on the Scriptures, and let God speak directly into our hearts.
But wait, we are still moms. Even if we take off school and pare down the schedule, there are still meals to be made and the dishes that follow. There is the laundry, the diapers, the interruptions. How are we supposed to dwell in the spiritual world when our material world never stops calling? Don't we deserve a "Holy Week "?
I can remember a day, a Good Friday, many years ago, when my husband and oldest went to confession and left me with five little people between the hours of 12:00 and 3:00. All I wanted was to meditate on the Passion. All I did was be mommy. And I was frustrated instead of Holy.
Our other Good Fridays consisted of wandering the church grounds or sitting in the van with a toddler and baby, while the older kids were inside for the Veneration of the Cross. I felt sure I was in the wrong place, missing where I was supposed to be.
But that's the point, that's where I was supposed to be, doing the mom thing when I wanted to be spending time in Adoration or even home meditating with a candle and a Bible, sitting in the van with the fussy little person when I wanted to be at the foot of the Cross. Because the point of Holy Week isn't to have it our way. There will be a time in our lives, God willing, for quiet, deep meditation. The point during these years is to embrace our Cross (which is also our blessing) and die to self while doing our best to point our littles ones towards God.
So, how do you live Holy Week as a mom of many? Small aspirations. Seize the moments for short meditations. Read to them about the Passion on their level. Participate where and when you can and offer the rest up.
Wishing you a Holy Week full of graces, obvious and hidden.
And I course my perfectly laid out Holy Week plans were met with a puking kid this morning. Yuck! Yeah, that'll be the reality of my Holy Week. Carrying the cross as I care for the sick this week, because we know in large families, it never stops at just one.
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