Passiontide

We used to call the last two weeks of Lent Passiontide--today, the 5th Sunday in Lent, would mark the beginning of Passiontide, which would last through Holy Saturday.






In these days of compression and short attention spans, many churches celebrate all of Holy Week on what once would be called Palm Sunday.






I yearn for a return to the old ways, when crosses would be draped in black or purple for these last two weeks of Lent.






I want to slow down, to savor this season, the austerity of it, the Lenten practices which give our days a discipline.






I want to take time to ponder this Lenten journey from ash








to resurrection.






I want to take my lesson from the monks and others who call us to the old ways, who remind us that those ways still have much to teach us.

This morning, I'm wondering how our experience of Holy Week might change if we stretched it out, rather than trying to contain it all into one Sunday morning. Two weeks to spend with one of the central events of our faith: how might we change?