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Today is Passion/Palm Sunday, when across the world people turn inward to consider the events of this cataclysmic week in the life of Jesus. Before beginning to consider what to write this morning, I “surfed” a bit on the internet where everything called me to consciousness of the enormity of the weeklong event that is just beginning.

I have always had difficulty considering the swiftness of change in the events from the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem to the crucifixion. Lately, however, with all the violence in the world that seems to erupt sometimes from nowhere, I have come to recognize the vagaries of human behavior and to accept that kind of bubbling up of change in emotional reaction in crowds. This year I have a sense of something shifting in myself and elsewhere in a different direction. The number of groups and organizations that are arising across the world for good purpose is increasing and the messages of such entities seem to be more and more similar, thus creating recognition, if not yet bonding together, for the benefit of the world both spiritually and materially (which at a certain level cannot remain separate).

For Christians it is the following of Jesus that moves us toward our neighbor in spreading light in the world. There is no better time to consider this truth and our part in it than this week. One of my stops this morning on the worldwide web was the site of The Episcopal Society of St. John the Evangelist where a quote from one of their recently deceased monks, Br. Eldridge Pendleton, captured my sense of what is afoot. He said the following:

Make no mistake about it. The events of Holy Week and Easter are not merely annual reenactments of the tragic events of the life of an important historical personage. This is spiritual mystery on its deepest and most cosmic scale.

May we all open ourselves to the power of this week and move toward oneness for redemption of the world.