Holy Week Readings.

The final week of Jesus' life is the momentous and consequential part of being Catholic. For without it, our faith would be completely different. As the writing style changes in Mark to a day to day account of Jesus, we must remind ourselves that our traditions are based in this week. I find to on coincidence that Jesus' final week was on and near Passover. Although we do not celebrate Passover as our Jewish brothers and sisters do, I still have vivid memories at St. Catherine of Siena School (Where I was for middle school) and Archbishop Murphy High School where during Holy Week (Holy Thursday) having a traditional Sader meal. So we have still have our roots in Jewish Faith, however, we do celebrate it completely differently.
Since we know the story, and we know what is going to happen on Friday of the week. I would like to go into some of the stories that I have either forgot or that we normally see when we go though the stories in the bible.
The first is on Holy Tuesday, where the "Little Apocalypse " where it parallels what happen in the Book of Revelations. However, Borg makes an interesting note on the accounts of this story: ".. . it is important to know that passages in the Bible can be wrong (98)." Roman Catholics do not practice Sola scriptura, we should have no problem with this. We must remember the History and Tradition that we have and take the lessons that can be learned from scripture.
What can we learn from this? That God works with humans. We know how humans are when compared to God, however, God has not wiped us out... yet. We are notorious for making mistakes, we should not dwell on our mistakes, we need to learn. The relationship that exist between God and humans is less significant that humans and humans. Since not having compassion and having humanity is what caused the flood. We need to give us credit, we have not gotten on God's bad side for 2009 years. So we should be doing something right.
The rest of the week (Friday to Sunday, a very short 3 days) is steeped with Tradition. I was born near Easter and my 21st birthday happened on Holy Saturday. The discussion of how I was going to celebrate my birthday (Party after Easter Vigil Mass). Enjoying ourselves needs to be required during Holy Week, we need one other thing.
I forgot where I heard this, but Roman Catholics and Jews share something: we both self loathe. What I feel what this means is be humble and constantly reminding ourselves that we are not that great. Since we can be a tight knit community (especially Gonzaga University), we are all hear for each other. Tonight I was at a Gonzaga Alumni banquet and each on said how Gonzaga is a family and it has never changed in ten, twenty, even thirty years ago something has not changed: we are all family.
So what am I saying? Being with each other and sharing our experience is the most important thing that we can celebrate God.

-Giles