Let's Prepare Adequately for “the great occasion” of Holy Week, Easter: South African Archbishop

Archbishop Slattery went on to encourage the people of God to  approach and prepare to meet Jesus, “who saved you and saves you again when you celebrate and come to meet him in the liturgy.” 

The Archbishop said that for the entire Holy Week, the Catholic Church will be celebrating the Pascal Mystery, the dying and rising of Jesus Christ and His creation of a church, “where He will remain with us always through the power of the Holy Spirit that He has poured out upon us. So Jesus now is with us.”

In the morning program of the South African Catholic Radio, Archbishop Slattery explained that the Church is always in God’s presence when she prays during the Holy Week, her Holy Sacraments, Holy Mass, and the Word of God.

The South African Catholic Church leader emphasized the importance of recognizing the ongoing “dialogue” between God and his people in worship during the Holy Week.

“Jesus transformed those old signs into the Sacraments so that we as God’s children encounter the trinity now during Holy Week,” said the Archbishop who began his Episcopal Ministry in the Catholic Diocese of Kokstad in February 1994.

The 81-year-old Church leader, who previously served as the Bishop of the Military Ordinariate of South Africa before his retirement in April 2019, acknowledged with appreciation the significance of choirs in the Catholic Church's liturgy, and emphasized the need for the choirs to prepare thoroughly for the Holy Week and Easter celebrations.