This is by far my favorite week of the Liturgical year. It is our Salvation represented in glorious display. We begin this week proclaiming Jesus as our King, laying palms at his feet as he rides into Jerusalem on an ass. And by the end of the week we’ll be shouting Crucify him with gusto, denying we know Him, or not caring one wee little bit about what happens to this guy. This is the Story we share week after week, year after year that reminds us of God’s great love for us. This week is the culmination of that love for us. It is where the New Adam (Jesus) and the New Eve (Mary) restore us, if we choose, to right relationship with God. Our misordered lives have the potential to come back to order.
There are moments of my own story that remind me of God’s love some of which entail deep internal struggle with who I am as one of God’s daughters in the Faith that has become my own. Because sometimes it seems as though the female person is less than. However I know full well this isn’t true. Both from the whole being a woman, reading Scripture, and reading John Paul II’s on the Dignity and Vocation of Women. Oh the mystery and value of woman. The gift and beauty we bring to life. The wisdom we bring, the creativity, problem solving, sticktuitiveness, the passion.
So this week the celebrations are so rich. Today is the Palm procession. Later this week, and I wish I was going for this, is the Chrism Mass. This is where the oils are blessed for the year. I can smell the oil from my own Confirmation twenty five years ago and the Baptism of my God Daughter thirteen years ago. In the Chrism Mass the Priests celebrate and affirm their own priesthood by taking a servants supine position on the floor during one of the prayers. Yes, they are first of all servants. We all are, when we follow Jesus. Good Friday, the day of loss, barrenness, loneliness, loss, grief, pain. And Saturday night we rejoice! So rich, so full, so much to consider.
So many quilty connections that my heart is fairly bursting to tell the Story. The last couple of years feels like I’ve been in a quilterly desert. That’s been no secret, not really. Quilting is sometimes hard like that. As I started writing this Hillsong’s Oceans began playing on Pandora. There seems to be a leading in a direction that probably surprises only me. I’m off to start a new quilt. Or continue one that I’ve started, I can see two in my imagination. Oh I’ll figure it out.
Happy Palm Sunday!
Teri
A Quilter's Heart 