We approach Holy week together aware of the Lord and all he had to face and endure.

Key moments in Holy Week to reflect upon

• Jesus setting his face towards Jerusalem;
• The welcome he received and the subsequent rejection he experienced; 
• His desire to be obedient to his vocation from the Father;
• The scene in the Upper Room, where in word and sign he anticipated the manner of his death and gave the Church the sacrament which is both a source and an expression of the grace which lies at the heart of our mission;
• His arrest in the garden, under the paschal moon;
• His betrayal by a close friend and his denial by another before the cock crowed at dawn;
• His “trial” before the keepers of orthodoxy in Israel, and then before the civil magistrate whose casual cynicism has marked him out as one of the dark figures of world history;
• The courageous little group – mostly women – who “…stand not far off…” and the reordering of relationships at the foot of the Cross: “Woman behold your son; son behold your mother…”
• The sordid, lonely and ignoble death which has given the world its most powerful religious symbol – the Cross;
• The kindness of strangers in his burial; 
• The abject bewilderment of his followers, lying on the floor in the dust behind locked doors;
• The various encounters by women of the risen Lord – unrecognised, but somehow known;
• The dawning conviction that everything in every age has been changed utterly.

( Taken from The message for Holy Week and Easter 2023 by Archbishop John McDowell and Archbishop Eamon Martin)

Some resources for prayer and reflection :