A fresh start

Today is the last Sunday before Palm Sunday. Lent is nearly over.

Perhaps this Lent has not really been a spiritually fruitful time.

Perhaps our lives are feeling empty, dry, or meaningless.

God offers us a fresh start.

Today’s first reading (Jeremiah 31:31-34) speaks of a new covenant, a new relationship, and the Responsorial Psalm (from Psalm 51) continues the theme:

A clean heart create for me, O God,
and a steadfast spirit renew within me.

Cast me not out from your presence,
and your Holy Spirit take not from me.

Give me back the joy of your salvation,
and a willing spirit sustain in me.

This coming Holy Week can be the time for that fresh start: perhaps by attending the special Liturgies and celebrations of Palm Sunday and the Triduum (perhaps even at the Cathedral or another parish with an especially Liturgy well), by seeing The Passion of the Christ again, or by otherwise reflecting in a new and deeply serious way on what God has done through the suffering, death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.