On this Friday, the week before the Friday we call "Good," we have the invitation to reflect upon the approaching Paschal Mystery. As the name indicates, we are celebrating the passing over of Jesus from death to life, for us, for freedom we have from the power of sin and death. It's a powerful reflection in this week ahead as we get closer to a sense of how our God, in the person of Jesus, enters into abandonment, suffering and death, as part of the journey to the fullness of life. We who have been baptized into his death are assured that we will rise with him.

This becomes especially powerful the more we let it be personal, the more we let our personal life journey come into communion with Jesus'. We can approach and go through Holy Week with very little touching us interiorly, or we can bring our real life struggles to the mystery of Jesus' death and resurrection, to experience it personally, to experience its grace, to allow ourselves to be comforted and filled with joy by what we celebrate.

Jesus came to be among us, as one of us. He was not shielded from the human encounter with suffering. No one can say "He doesn't understand my feelings." He knew rejection, alienation, marginalization, contempt and the deep human struggle with the brokenness of our world, and the faith tradition that was supposed to welcome him. He takes our human experience and redeems it by being in it with us. It is comforting and liberating good news to accept and embrace the fact that we are never alone, in whatever discourages us, causes us grief, defeats us, or leads to death in any way. As we encounter and enter into the drama involved in the story we'll re-celebrate this coming week, we are always aware that "His death is our rising from the dead."

We can only approach the mystery of hope and life in the midst of whatever we are carrying, when we let Jesus love us there and take on our suffering. Let us accompany him in his passion story this coming week. Let us experience it all as being "for me." And, let us experience deep gratitude that he carries our suffering, along with his - falling into the hands of a loving God who is the eternal mystery of life itself.