(Unsplash/Aaron Burden)
There is a rhythm woven into everything. It pulses in the rising and setting sun, the budding and falling of leaves, the birth and the letting go of each living thing. This rhythm — life, death and new life — is not just around us. It is within us. It is the shape of our becoming.
Holy Week invites us to notice this rhythm and to enter it, not as observers but as participants. It is not only a remembrance of events long past. It is also an immersion into the sacred pattern of reality itself. Holy Week mirrors our life: a journey marked by love, loss, waiting, surrender and — by grace — resurrection.
And what carries us through this journey? Prayer.
Prayer is not something added to life — it is how we live it. It is how we walk with awareness. Prayer is not just what we do before meals or in sacred buildings. It is the ongoing relationship between the human spirit and the sacred that dwells within and around us all. It is not magic, not transaction. It is intimacy, attunement and trust.
As Christians, we pray often. But Holy Week teaches us to experience prayer anew — not as isolated words or fixed postures but as living relationship that deepens through every part of life.
On Palm Sunday, we pray with joy and welcome.
On Holy Thursday, we pray in community, service and vulnerability.
On Good Friday, we pray in silence, grief and surrender.
On Holy Saturday, we pray with empty hands and uncertain hearts.
On Easter morning, we pray in awe because love has done what we dared not hope: It has brought life from death.
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This is the shape of all true prayer — not linear but cyclical. We come with praise. We bring our sorrow. We ask, we wait, we listen. And ultimately, we give thanks — again and again.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks of four classic forms of prayer:
- Adoration, when we open ourselves in wonder to the mystery that is greater than us.
- Contrition, when we turn honestly to the one who receives our flaws with mercy.
- Supplication, when we bring our needs and the world's needs.
- Thanksgiving, when we recognize that all is a gift.
These are not boxes to check but movements to feel alongside the God who joins us in both suffering and joy, who walks with us through every stage of life's spiral.
Franciscan Fr. Richard Rohr writes: "Prayer is not primarily saying words or thinking thoughts. It is, rather, a stance. It's a way of living in the Presence, living in awareness of the Presence, and even of enjoying the Presence."
Holy Week invites and reinvites us to be prayerful people who move slowly through the world, are awake to what is real, and seek not to control God but to consent to grace.
This Holy Week, let us allow prayer to rise from our lives — not perfectly, but sincerely. Let prayer rise from our confusion, hope, weariness and joy. Let prayer draw us into deeper relationships with one another, creation and a God who is always near.
