Free and Available

A million pesos has just become available to you. It's free and yours for the taking. What would you do? Will you grab it at the soonest or delay and miss the chance?

A sane person would immediately grab it. He would not delay a single bit. He would probably drop everything that he is doing. All of it can wait compared to the cash that is available for the taking. Unless, of course, I'm Mark Zuchenberg and a million pesos won't matter. But for an average person, the answer is obvious.

But letting go of a million pesos is precisely what most people probably are doing during Holy Week. They go to beaches, out of town, out of the country, never going to a single mass during the Easter Triduum of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Actually, let me correct that, it's actually more than a million pesos that we are letting go.

No, not even two million or ten million, it's not actually material riches that we lose if we do not attend the Easter Triduum rites. It's more than these. It's the grace of God.

The grace of God is flowing fully and fruitlessly during these times of the Holy Week, especially during the Easter Triduum rites. Here, we Catholics are calling to mind the greatest salvation of man. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, suffered and died for our sins. God Himself saved us from death through the blood of the Redeemer.

But not only that, the culmination of the Easter Triduum is not the death of Christ, but His resurrection. Not only did He die for our sins. But He defeated sin and death by resurrecting, lifting us to New Life. Jesus rose from death, and because of this triumph, death will no longer have a hold on us.

The Easter Triduum is the culmination of the Church's liturgical life. It is the highest point because it speaks of our salvation. Even the celebration of Christmas is not enough to equal the importance of the Easter celebration of the Church.

That is why the grace of God is freely and fully flowing during these times. It is free and available. We only need to grab it, hold it, receive it during the Easter Triduum. It is freely given. It is freely available.

More important, indeed, than a million pesos...