I was doing research recently for a project and came across Saint John Paul II’s homily from the Easter Vigil in 1979.
He draws attention to the stone rolled in front of Christ’s tomb.
This is what was on the women’s minds as they came to the tomb but it also symbolized the weight that had “crushed their hearts.”
The weight of death. The weight of grief. The weight of seeing their Lord crucified.
While we still experience the weight of that stone—the weight of death and our Lord’s death—we never had to experience these forty days, or Holy Week, or our Lord’s death without the Resurrection.
There is a blessing in that.
But there’s also a reason to pause. Not to skip ahead to Easter Sunday. Not to rush past Good Friday because we know how the story ends.
But to actually enter into it. To feel the weight of that stone.
Let us pray.
Lord, as we approach Holy Week, help us to follow Your will in this season. Help us to enter in, to experience this Lent and Holy Week as You see fit. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Keep fighting the good fight. Our Lady of Victory, pray for us.
