Tonight the Good Shepherd Parish, Hurunui, celebrated the Holy Thursday Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper at the Community of the Beatitudes in Leithfield. There is a simplicity and beauty in this liturgy which concludes with the procession of the Blessed Sacrament to the Altar of Repose where people watch and wait in prayer with Jesus remembering his solitude in Gethsemane.

I was going to take a break from blogging over these days, but as I was sitting with others in prayer after Mass, I felt a deep gratitude for the communities that I have been called to serve knowing that this blog provides an link and an encouragement for many people who I won’t get to see over these days. I think of the Food For Faith family – those who follow the Facebook page and this website, the people of the Good Shepherd Parish, Hurunui, the parishioners of the Chatham Islands, the communities in the Philippines – in Manila, GenSan, and Cebu, and the people of the Fidenza community Emilia-Romagna.

In my own solitude tonight I realised that the only way many of you will be able to share the power and beauty of the Holy Week and Easter journey is through this website. So I am happy to offer a thought or two over these days.

There was a deep stillness in the chapel after Mass tonight. The problem with such stillness and silence is that all of our reality, floods our mind. We may taste the joy and beauty, but at the same time our anxieties and pain enter our consciousness. If you notice this happening you are on the right track since life with Jesus is not about escaping pain by our own efforts, but about being carried through it in the divine embrace.

Tonight, in these Gethsemane hours, we have no need to be afraid since Jesus is leading us. So we are not afraid to sit, relax and wait knowing that He is close. We have nothing to fear.