TIPS FOR THE HOLY WEEK DURING COVID-19 CRISIS.

Dear brethren in Christ, we are witnessing for a 2nd consecutive year a unique Holy Week within this historical global COVID-19 crisis.

The question is: How are we going to live these days when we commemorate the supreme actions of love of Our Lord’s Passion, Death and Resurrection to save us?

An immediate practical way is to live the Holy Week in the best manner possible: to live it in a holy way.

Below you have some tips on how to do this: 

1. Make sure you are in the state of grace (without mortal sin). If not, I encourage you to receive God’s love, mercy and forgiveness in the Sacrament of Confession; if priest is unavailable, pray an act of perfect contrition with the will to confess as soon as possible.
2. Thank Our Lord for His total self-giving, dying on the Cross in order to save us;
3. Accompany Him closely during these days through generous prayer and sacrifice in atonement of our sins and that of the whole world, meditating on the Gospel passages which narrate His Passion and Death to realize how much He loves you.
4. Offer to Our Lord your sufferings which becomes a pleasing sacrifice: illness, risk of exposure to the COVID-19 because of your job; hunger; anxiety; separation from those who are quarantined; tiredness; the death of a love one or a friend; patience with difficulties of being quarantined with people who have character problems…and so on.
5. Tune-in to the online Holy Week Services  during the present circumstances: Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday and Good Friday and Easter Sunday Mass and services. If you can’t tune-in online, you could pray as a family the Home celebrations for Holy Week, and pray often the spiritual communion.
6. Struggle to live a holy life, not only during this Holy Week, but beginning again daily by avoiding sins which are the cause of Christ’s Passion and Death;
7. Say many acts of love, of contrition and of thanksgiving; and of atonement and reparation for our sins and those of the entire humanity.
8. Make life pleasant to the people around us, especially those who are in need, always forgiving for the offenses received; biting one’s tongue instead of answering back; doing acts of service to those around us; avoiding an impulsive character which irritate those with us.
9. Corporal and spiritual Works of mercy: volunteering to whatever task to lend a hand during this crisis; giving food to those who do not have; cooking for them; distributing basic necessities; sewing face-masks and giving them out…and so on.
10. Convert everything above into prayer by doing them for God out of love.

A blessed Holy Week ahead.
Stay home, stay safe, wear a mask when you get out,… and God bless! Fr. Rolly Arjonillo

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