Watch and Pray

It’s Holy Thursday. We’ve been waiting for almost all of Lent, but the command to watch and pray with Jesus holds fast especially today and throughout the next three days as He enters His Agony in the Garden, Passion on the Cross, Burial, and ultimately Resurrection on Easter Sunday.

The call to watch and pray with Jesus on Holy Thursday in many ways is symbolic of the call to each and every one of us who wait through agony, pain, and uncertainty for our Easter Sundays - when the fulfillment of our purpose and reason for existing comes to pass. 

The call to watch and pray especially is for those of us who don’t know where we are going and are called to obey the will of God when it’s not what we had hoped for, when it demands our suffering and sacrifice, and when the silence of Holy Saturday and how God will bring about His glory is uncertain.

What is watching and praying? How do we do it? 

It is staying close to Christ. It is staying awake to His action in your life. It is embracing the multitude of emotions that come with waiting. It is prayerfully entering into accepting God’s will and an uncertain future. It is allowing suffering if that is what God wills for us in this time. It is an act of obedience and faith.

Women in waiting, during this Triduum leading up to Easter, watch and pray.