Holy Week: How Holiness Happens

Here we are again about to be knee-deep in holy week. There’s not too much about the world that feels holy right now. Innocent people died a few days ago due to a madman unleashing his wrath in the form of nerve gas. The U.S. retaliated by launching dozens of missiles with the intent of crippling the madman’s regime. It seems the world may be on the cusp of war at the very time The Mother of Exiles has quit taking in refugees affected by such horrors. If that doesn’t weigh heavy on your soul, I don’t know what will.

Where is God? Is there anything holy left to hold onto?

And yet, the most holy acts are often done quietly with fear and trembling in the midst of uproar:

• An organization providing medical care in a war zone
• A group of women committed to caring for sexual abuse survivors
• A young woman choosing to love and parent neglected children she did not birth
• A father choosing to live and love when every day is filled with mental torment and anguish
• A teenager choosing rehabilitation to beat a drug addiction
• A daughter announcing she’s lesbian though she knows her parents will disown her
• A young girl standing up to the children who bully her friend
• A woman pouring her expensive perfume over the dirty feet of a man while others gossiped
• A gentleman silently drawing a line in the sand to take the side of an adulterer
• A father throwing a party for the son who returned home after wasting his inheritance
• A wanted man washing his friends’ feet amidst his final dinner
• An innocent man forgiving the people who crucified him

We each hold the power of holiness. It’s within us. We don’t have to pray for it. We don’t have to perform a set of rituals to achieve it. We already own it, but too often, we don’t even realize it. Holiness is what moves us to act with grace and mercy and empathy and compassion and conviction. It’s the little things that set us apart from what everyone else is doing, from what’s easy.

As we step into Holy Week, let us remember that holiness happens when we choose to live vulnerably by loving ourselves and loving others.