In less than 12 hours, we will stand at the threshold of a new liturgical season. While technically we are still in Lent, I have come to think of Holy Thursday morning as sort of a Triduum warm-up, a time of stretching so we are ready to participate in ritual action, to be plunged into the enactment of the Paschal Mystery, soaked in the Easter sacraments! Let's warm up with a little liturgical imagining so we come expectant to the celebration of the Great Three Days.

Imagine yourselves wrapped in the resplendent and provocative symbols of this three-day festival. At one level, we know well these symbols; at another level, we know so little. We know of the new oils, the foot washing, the stripping of the altar; the veneration of the Cross and the starkness of Good Friday, all of which leads us to the magnificent glow of the Easter fire and the new Paschal Candle - the light of Christ that dispels our darkness. Then there's the storytelling - the passages from Scripture that recount God's story and our story of God inviting us to share in the Divine life. We are on the edge of our seats and listen with the utmost attention. Then the robust singing of Alleluia! The Good News of Jesus Christ is proclaimed. We can see the catechumens of our Church, hear the trickle of the waters of baptism, and smell the sweet scent of chrism. We renew our own baptismal promises and are doused with water from the font. We share our Eucharistic meal for the first time with the newly baptized. And then the dawn of Easter Sunday emerges - when we walk to the empty tomb with Mary Magdalene, who, like us, believed Jesus' promise that there is more than the Cross - there is resurrection, there is life.

And let us not forget the primary liturgical symbol - the assembly - us! - we who gather to celebrate, we who continue the Christian memory of all that God has done and is doing and will do in Jesus Christ through the power of the Spirit. The other symbols come to life because God is working through us - the Body of Christ. It's our name; it's our identity. We the Body of Christ are a people who journeyed through the wilderness of Lent to encounter more deeply the Mystery of God; a people who, like Jesus, have as our tools of service a towel and a basin; a people who strive to live the new commandment of giving loving service to one another as Jesus gave to us. We gather as a people who know pain and suffering, who know what it is to struggle and sometimes stumble under the weight of our crosses. We know what it is to forgive and to be forgiven. We gather as people redeemed by the cross of Christ, invited to live in right relationship with God. We are Spirit-filled people who embrace the Paschal Mystery, who trust the process of dying and rising. We gather as people who empty ourselves to allow the word of God to penetrate our hearts and minds and who say "Thanks be to God!" and "Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ." Thanks and praise offered as we become the enfleshed word of God. We gather as people who will share the Bread of Life and the Cup of Blessing and who say "Amen! So be it!" as we are named the Body of Christ, the Blood of Christ. We are Easter people - a symbol of hope in the world, a window through which the world can see that God continues to be and will always be faithful to the covenant relationship.

Wow! There's a lot to take in! All of these rich and wonderful and familiar symbols - but yet unfamiliar. Isn't it amazing how in these familiar symbols, God often sneaks up on us - takes us by surprise? Suddenly, the symbols that we think we know so well confront us - they invite us to ask new questions of ourselves - as persons and as a Church. They can shake us out of our complacency, invite us to grow and live more deeply our life in Christ. Suddenly, our expectations about the symbols we will encounter are turned upside down - our experience of these familiar symbols is transformed. Even more so, provided that we are open, that we give ourselves over to the symbols of the Church's liturgy, we are transformed. These symbols are our connectors - they grab our hearts and draw us more deeply into the life of the Trinity. They give us a port of entry into the invisible but real presence of the Divine. We are thus united with the Holy One. Suddenly, ordinary things of life - water, fire, bread, wine, oil, people - become extraordinary and can bring about a change in mind and heart because they help us to see and hear in new ways, to relate to life in new ways.

My hope for these three days of fasting and feasting, of proclaiming and praising, of baptizing and blessing, processing and presenting, anointing and absorbing…will leave us exhausted…exhausted because we have poured out ourselves, emptied ourselves in order to be carried away by the power-laden symbols. And may this pouring out of ourselves, this offering of our very selves, of our availability to God continue as we are sent…sent to be the word of God, the Body of Christ for the world. We are Easter people with work to do!