This season is the most holy of all the seasons in the Church year.It begins with Palm Sunday and concludes with what is known as the Sacred Triduum or Easter Triduum.

Churches around the world will be filled with people this week as the days of Holy Week and Easter are observed. Some call Holy Week “the week that changed the world”. Rich pageantry, stark simplicity and solemn rites mark the journey of the faithful with Christ through his passion, death and resurrection.

Many find the unique services a time to invite people to attend church with them, as these can be effective ways of sharing the faith in a poignant way.

The last three days of Holy Week are called the Sacred Triduum, the three holy days. We can look at this period from three perspectives: These days bring to a climax and conclusion our preparation for Easter. The season of Lent has pointed us in this direction. Now we enter the Holy of Holies so to speak – where Christ our great high priest offers himself on the cross for sinful humanity. They begin on Thursday evening with Maundy Thursday (from mandatum novum do vobis) which means, “a new commandment I give to you,” where dramatic readings and song remind us of the institution of the Lord’s Supper by Jesus with his disciples, the stripping of the altar for with Good Friday and the meditations of the Stations of the Cross, the Easter Vigil and Easter Day.

These three days are already a part of Easter; for there is an inseparable union between the death of Christ and his resurrection. The two together constitute the Paschal Mystery. This is the Christian Passover, when our Lord passed over from death to life, and through his victory he overcame death and the grave. Therefore, we pass from Holy Week to Easter Week with no noticeable break. Elements of Easter can be found in each of the parts of the Sacred Triduum. The image of the cross is not forgotten in the Easter celebration.

These three days may, nevertheless, be regarded as a unit in themselves, a true triduum or trilogy, a three-part drama showing forth Christ’s redemptive work. This is in keeping with the tradition of the Apostolic Church, where the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus were always remembered together.

Today is St. Patrick’s day, a day when everyone likes to dress in green and celebrate their ‘Irishness.’ It doesn’t matter whether you have even a hint of Irish in you, you can be Irish for a day. And it is more than green beer and potatoes. (The joke is that the Irish celebrate a 7 course meal on St. Paddy’s day, a six-pack of Guinness and a potato). There are many famous stories about St. Patrick, the one most noted is that he drove all the snakes our of Ireland. These stories are rich in the lore of the Irish people.

Patrick was actually born in Great Britain to parents of Roman descent, who was captured by Irish raiders and when he was sixteen years old and carried off to Ireland and made a slave. He tended the sheep of his master, a chieftain and Druid priest, for six years. He relates in his “Confessio” that during his captivity while tending the flocks he prayed many times in the day: “the love of God”, he added,

‘and His fear increased in me more and more, and the faith grew in me, and the spirit was roused, so that, in a single day, I have said as many as a hundred prayers, and in the night nearly the same, so that whilst in the woods and on the mountains, even before the dawn, I was roused to prayer and felt no hurt from it, whether there was snow or ice or rain; nor was there any slothfulness in me, such as I see now, because the spirit was then fervent within me.’

In the ways of a benign Providence the six years of Patrick’s captivity became a remote preparation for his future apostolate. He acquired a perfect knowledge of the Celtic tongue in which he would one day announce the glad tidings of Redemption, and, as his master Milchu was a druidical high priest, he became familiar with all the details of Druidism from whose bondage he was destined to liberate the Irish race.

He escaped his master, walked 200 miles to the sea and boarded a ship there where he determined that he was being called by God to sacred ministry. After much study and growth in the knowledge of Holy Scripture and fully devoted to God, he had a vision of young children of Ireland, who cried to him: “O holy youth, come back to Erin, and walk once more amongst us.” Patrick returned to Ireland and with much opposition by the Druid priests, putting his life in harm’s way, yet resolute to fulfill the call of God, he prevailed in bringing the ‘love of God’ to the Irish. It is said that when he returned to Ireland there was not one Christian and when he died there was not one Druid priest.

In his struggle against paganism and his fight to evangelize the Irish, Patrick composed his most famous prayer, known as “The Breastplate of St. Patrick.” It is:

I arise today with a mighty power
Calling on the name of the Holy Trinity
Affirming His Threeness
Confessing His Oneness
Thanking my Creator
Loving His Creation.

I arise today
Made strong by Christ’s coming
Made strong by His baptism
Made strong by His crucifixion and resurrection and ascension
Made strong by His coming to meet me at the day of doom.

I arise today
Strengthened by the power of seraphim
Strengthened by the obedience of angels
Strengthened by the presence of archangels
Strengthened by the communion of saints
Strengthened by the prayers of the fathers
Strengthened by the predictions of prophets
Strengthened by the preaching of apostles
Strengthened by the innocence of holy virgins
Strengthened by the deeds of holy and steadfast men.

I arise today
Under the strength of sky
The light of the sun
The beauty of the moon
The glory of fire
The swiftness of lightning
The wildness of wind
The depth of the ocean
The firmness of earth
And the hardness of rock.

I arise today
With God’s strength to pilot me
With God’s might to uphold me
With God’s wisdom to guide me
With God’s eye to look out for me
With God’s ear to hear me
With God’s word to speak for me
With God’s hand to defend me
With God’s way to lie before me
With God’s shield to protect me
With God’s legions to safeguard me from the snare of demons
From evil enticements, from the failings of Nature

And from all who wish me ill, near and far
Whether alone or in crowds.

I summon all these to protect me
Body and soul
Against every wicked power that stands against me
Against the wild words of false prophets
Against the dark ways of the heathen
Against the false ways of the heretic
Against the false gods all around me
Against the magic and idolatry
Against the spells of smiths, witches and warlocks
Against every false lore that snares body and soul.

Be Christ this day, my strong protector!
Against poison and burning
Against drowning and wounding
So I may come to enjoy Your rich reward.

Christ beside me, Christ before me
Christ behind me, Christ within me
Christ beneath me, Christ above me
Christ on my right side, Christ on my left
Christ in my lying, Christ in my sitting, Christ in my rising
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me
Christ in the mouth of every eye that sees me
Christ in every ear that hears me.

I arise today with a mighty power!
With my shield – the Holy Trinity
Affirming His Threeness
Confessing His Oneness
Thanking my Creator
Loving His Creation

Salvation comes from the Lord
Salvation comes from the Lord
Salvation comes from Jesus Christ!

Let Your Salvation, Oh Lord, be with us always!

Why don’t you find time to say this prayer today as you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.

Today, Ash Wednesday, begins the season of Lent in the Christian calendar. It is a penitential season leading up to Passion week and Easter day. For many it is a time to consecrate a fast, to make us aware of our own mortality and hungering for a closer connection with God. It is a season of 40 days (excluding Sundays which are feast days) that parallel Jesus’ 40 days of temptation in the wilderness where the devil attempted to get Jesus to worship him. We begin the season by the imposition of ashes, being reminded that “from dust you came and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19).

Of course we know that though we will return to dust, it was precisely Jesus’ obedience to the Father that bought our salvation and eternal life. This is the great story of Easter (but more about that on another blog). There are three things we need to remember during this season of personal reflection and penitence.

First, we need to understand the depth of our brokenness and our inability to fix ourselves. Jesus understands our struggles because he was ‘tempted in every way as we are, yet he was without sin.’ Jesus did not sin yet he was keenly aware of the pain of being separated from God and the effects it had on Adam’s offspring. He walked with them, he healed them, he saw the consequences of their choices and comforted them. He walks with us now and we learn to lean on him.

Second, Jesus walks with us because he knows we will have to ‘deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow him.’ Jesus came, not to improve our lives but to end our lives and he knows how painful that is. He did not come singing the old Billy Joel song, ‘Don’t go changing, to try and please me, I love you just the way you are.’ He does not affirm us in our brokenness, but demands that we be ‘crucified with Christ – it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me – and the life live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.’ (Galatians 2:20)

Third, we are made new. ‘If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.’ (2 Corinthians 5:17,18) Not only are we made new, we have been given the ministry of reconciliation. That is why we will pray for those during this season that are on our ‘Most Wanted’ list. We will ‘do the possible, and let God do the impossible.’

May we be strengthened and renewed on this journey.

I posted on an earlier blog some thoughts from the Winter Conference 2009 and the theme “Grow Out On A Limb.” Out on the limb is where the fruit is. But how do we get intentional and actually go out to the fruit? One of the ways is to prepare ourselves by strengthening ourselves with the power of God. The Lenten season is an excellent time for us to look inward and reflect on ways that hinder us from doing what God desires for the lost. But we can’t stop there. Lent can be the time of pruning so we can bear more fruit, as Jesus stated in John 15.

During this season I am challenging each member of DMAC to pick up the devotional “My Most Wanted Devotional – 40 Days To Pray For The Lost.” We are providing the devotional for you to list the 10 people you most want to see saved and pray for them for 40 days. This is what Loren Cunningham, founder of YWAM calls, ‘doing the possible so God can do the impossible.’ If it is God’s desire to see people come to Him through Jesus Christ (and I believe it is) then we can bring before Him our ’10 Most Wanted’ and watch Him do the work that only He can do in the lives of those He sent His Son to die for. He has done His part. It is up to us to do our part. Let this be your Lenten journey.