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WEDNESDAY OF HOLY WEEK

Wednesday of Holy week: the Bible is silent. I am reminded of the marvelous novel SILENCE , by Shusaku Endo: a story from the 1600's in which a Catholic Priest, Fr. Rodriguez, is imprisoned in Medieveal Japan.  His crime: claiming Christ.  The thing which will allow his release: to deny Christ by trampling on an icon of Jesus; which, in the end, he does after years of crying out to Jesus to speak to him and tell him what to do, but Jesus is silent.  Only after he curses Jesus, does Jesus speak to him and let him know that Jesus' mission is to bear our betrayals and sins.  The silence of Jesus finally leads him to understanding and to faith. Mother Teresa's confessional letters to her confessor are collected in a little book called Come Be My Ligh t.  Pope John Paul II allowed these letters to be published so people would know how much Mother suffered from the Silence of God. St. John of The Cross titled these dark moments when God is silent: when God seems remote,   
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GOOD FRIDAY

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GOOD FRIDAY. Early in the morning, Jesus is condemned to death by crucifixion. His disciple who betrayed him, Judas, hangs himself. At approximately 9:00 AM, Jesus is condemned. Jesus is brought to Pilate, who tries to avoid his death by using a custom to have one of two prisoners freed and the other punished. Pilate asks the people to choose between Jesus and a criminal who has committed awful crimes: Barabbas. The people of Jerusalem choose to free Barabbas and crucify Jesus. Pilate relents to the custom, although he states that he "finds no fault" in Jesus. Jesus, who has been whipped and is wearing a crown of thorns, is paraded through the streets carrying his cross. The route through which he is taken (The Via Dolorosa) leads to Golgotha, the "place of the skull," where hi is crucified at about noon. By 3:00 PM, Jesus is dead. By 6:00 PM, Jesus body is interred in a tomb in the garden of Joseph of Aramithea, who later flees Jerusalem to England to escape pe
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TUESDAY OF HOLY WEEK

On Tuesday of Holy Week, Jesus travelled from Bethany to Jerusalem where he has more confrontations with the priests. Following that, he and his disciples go the The Mount of Olives, where Jesus talks with the crowd and teaches them.  On the way there, he is hungry and stops at a fig tree to get some figs.  The tree is barren, and he curses it, and it withers.  He compares the fig tree to people who are barren of spiritual fruits in their lives.  The example of the fig tree reminds us that we are called to bear the fruit of our spiritual life in terms of how we influence the world about us.  We are called to bear fruit. While Jesus is teaching, darkness is encroaching.  Judas leaves the disciples and goes to the priests and Sanhedrin and negotiates to betray Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. Followin his teaching at The Mount of Olives, Jesus returns to Bethany where he will stay all night, and all Wednesday, so far as we know.
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