The deepest and most beautiful pathway of prayer is opened up in the Triduum. Each liturgy opens into an even deeper silence in the fullness of God. This is the fullness open when Christ’s heart was pierced by the lance — one which gushes forth with new life for those whose prayer aches with thirst.
The Savior of the World on Holy Thursday in thanksgiving and blessing binds us to Himself by the Blood of the New Covenant. At that Sacred Banquet in which the Word of the Father washes feet and offers Himself as true spiritual food, prayer takes us into the mysterious source and summit of everything we believe! Those who will partake of this mystery offered, broken and given, taste on their own tongues a glory that the world cannot give.
On Good Friday, the realization of this supreme prayer of the Lord passes through betrayal, denial, passion and the silence of death. In the agony and blood of the One whose wordless cry reaches the Heart of the Father, prayer beholds an obedient love that no height or depth or power can overcome. Those who will come to adore the Cross enter the very threshold to the bosom of the Trinity and find the only place where the human heart can rest.
On Holy Saturday the pathway of the Lord’s prayer leads through Hell itself. Guided by His Rod and Staff in that Valley of the Shadow of Death, prayer discovers an invincible fountain of hope. Those who follow Him through such pain know the light, warmth and victory that are His.
In the dark hours of the Easter Vigil, the unvanquished Word of the Father rises and appears in our midst. This enfleshed Word, having conquered death and sin, lifts the whole world into a new creation, and makes of everything in our lives, an acceptable offering to the Father. Prayer beholds on this night the light that shines in the darkness and the truth that darkness cannot overcome it. Prayer plunges into those new waters of that new creation and it gives birth with the Church to new sons and daughters in grace. Easter Prayer proceeds from this new life and, even when uttered on dying lips, knows the antidote for death and the medicine of immortality — for it beholds the One whose silent fullness makes all things new.
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Image: Depositphotos
This post was originally published on Beginning to Pray and is republished here with permission.
