Yet I well remember
The favors of these men. Were they not mine?
Did they not sometime cry “All hail” to me?
So Judas did to Christ, but He in twelve
Found truth in all but one; I, in twelve thousand, none.
~Shakespeare, Richard II, Act 4, Scene 1
Our Holy Week begins with Jesus entering Jerusalem riding on a donkey – a king, who is welcomed with shouts of Hosanna’s from the crowd. King Richard seems to long for the “all hail’s” that he had often heard, but he quickly realizes that he has a Judas or two in his own life.
The mysteries of the holiest week in Christianity are wrapped in deception, truth, politics, and love. Judas can’t get beyond the rewards of cooperating with the authorities who were threatened by the message of Jesus. Pilate seeks a truth that is in line with his own desire for power. The Roman occupation looms in the background and heightens the identity of Jesus as an insurrectionist. But more than any of that, Holy Week is about the love of God poured out in Jesus Christ – in the Garden of Gethsemane, at the table of the Eucharist, in His outstretched arms on the Cross, and in His bursting forth from the tomb.
We relive Christ’s suffering, dying, and rising this week. May we come to these liturgies with a desire to experience the sacrificial love of Jesus who offers us hope in our brokenness, light in our darkness, truth in our uncertainty, and love that saves us.
Welcome to the Saint Aloysius! Our parish was founded in 1896 to serve the Catholic families that were settling in the greater New Canaan area.