The Triduum Begins, Holy Thursday

The Triduum begins today, the three holiest days of the year. How hard it is to keep this in mind in this most secular of ages, how difficult it is to be mindful, to keep watch, to remain alert. But let us try! Tonight Jesus enters into the agony of the Garden of Gethsemane in perfect and sublime obedience. How frightful that we are meant to do the same. What a terrifying freedom we have--that we can, that we almost always choose not to.

This is an excerpt from Romano Guardini's The Lord from the chapter on the "Footwashing," emphasis is mine.

"Every Christian reaches the point where he too must be ready to accompany the Master into destruction and oblivion: into that which the world considers folly, that which for his own understanding is incomprehensible, for his own feeling intolerable. Whatever it is to be: suffering, dishonor, the loss of loved ones, or the shattering of a lifetime oeuvre, this is the decisive test of his Christianity. Will he shrink back before the ultimate depths, or will he be able to go all the way and thus win his share of the life of Christ? What is it we fear in Christianity if no precisely this demand?

But to be Christian means to participate in the life of Christ--all of it; only the whole brings peace. The Lord once said: "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you; not as the world gived to do I give you. Do not let your heart be troubled, or be afraid." Peace comes only from living this through to the end. One way or another we must brush the depths Christ divinely plummeted, taste the dregs he drained to the last drop" "It is consummated." From this unreserved realization of the Father's will comes the illimitable peace of Christ, also for us."