Thy Kingdom Come!
Just like everything else this year, we had many uncertainties. How do we organize and run our biggest event of the year despite all the restrictions? A couple of years ago Ally Wheeler, decided to organize a team of young adults and adult who would work together to make Holy Week happen. This year, we did the same. We put together a team of about ten people who would work in their own small teams to conquer our different responsibilities. After many hours of meetings, phone calls, and teamwork. We were as ready as we were ever going to be to make Holy Week Missions happen.
The week was filled with some incredibly beautiful experiences for everyone. We started Missions out with a commissioning live Mass on Wednesday night and began a full morning of activities on Holy Thursday. There were several groups of high school boys and girls and young adults who went on various types of missions, from helping at homeless shelters to giving out lunch bags at street missions to praying with people. Despite the unusual April day filled with snow, everyone had an opportunity to serve and just spend time in fellowship with each other. On Good Friday, we had our annual crosswalk through downtown Cincinnati carrying crosses and asking for prayer intentions. We prayed for all of these prayer intentions at the Good Friday Liturgy at Holy Cross Immaculata Parish in Mount Adam’s. There were about 175 families and young adults, as well as high school boys and girls, who participated in this beautiful crosswalk. Also, sveral of our Legionary Priests offered several hours for the Sacrament of Reconciliation to all who came to Holy Cross Immaculata on Good Friday.
We ended a beautiful week with door-to-door missions on Holy Saturday morning in the neighborhood of a parish where we invited people to Easter Mass and prayed with them. A resident told one of our missionaries that she hadn’t been to Mass since she was a child and how moved she was that the missionaries were there talking to her and inviting her to Mass.
Holy Week Missions become a place each year for all to not only experience the love of Christ but also to have an opportunity to spread that love to the world. Every person in their own way is able to accompany Jesus during His passion and crucifixion and to share in the joy of His Resurrection!
Contributed by Mary Peach, lay young adult member of Regnum Christi