Bishop Solis' Holy Week Message 2025
Greetings of Christ’s peace and love! We approach Holy Week with so many uncertainties and worries about what is happening in our world. Now is a good time to look back over the days since we entered into the Lenten season on Ash Wednesday and devoted ourselves to the three pillars of prayer, fasting and almsgiving with the intention of conforming ourselves more fully to God’s will.
Our Lenten journey reaches its summit as we celebrate Holy Week. On Palm Sunday, we commemorate Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem when crowds welcomed him by spreading their cloaks on the road and proclaiming, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest” (Luke 19:38). But this moment of celebration was fleeting, as during the events of Holy Thursday and Good Friday, Christ experienced the most unimaginable and greatest humiliation, betrayal, abandonment, and cruelty from the same crowd and his own disciples.
However, in selfless love and obedience to his Father, Christ fulfilled God’s promise of salvation. Before his Passion and death, Jesus at the Last Supper instituted the Holy Eucharist. He broke and shared bread and wine with his disciples and also foretold his death, in fulfillment of God’s will and not his own. The sublime sacrifice of Christ gives us spiritual nourishment and unites us to our Lord.
The events of Judas’ betrayal, Jesus’ arrest, and Peter’s denial provide us opportunities to reflect on our own sinfulness and ask ourselves whether our observance of the three Lenten pillars has turned our lives more fully to God’s will. Beginning on Holy Thursday with the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, we enter the Easter Triduum, which includes Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion, Holy Saturday, and the glorious Resurrection on Easter. These holiest days from the liturgical perspective reveal “for us the unity of Christ’s Paschal Mystery” (U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops).
The liturgy of these holy three days calls us to reflect on Christ, who willingly sacrificed his life for our salvation; and God’s infinite love for us, which through this grace grants us life, both now and eternally. I invite the people of God to participate in all the services during Holy Week, not only as an individual but as a member of our faith community. This is a time for us to prepare ourselves and to be with our Lord who has conquered death and risen, so that amid the challenges and sufferings in our world, we might find hope in the new life Christ brings.
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