Experience God’s love in new ways with daily reflections that connect the liturgies of Holy Week to our call to live the Diocesan.
This Holy Week, we invite you to journey with Christ from the palms of Jerusalem to the empty tomb and discover how the Church’s most sacred days unfold the very heart of our Diocesan Mission Plan.
Bishop Patrick has called us to embrace three foundation pillars in the Mission Plan: Encounter, Discipleship and Mission. These aren’t abstract concepts or distant ideals. They are the living reality of what happens when we walk with Jesus through His Passion, Death, and Resurrection.
From Palm Sunday to Easter, we will experience God’s love in new and profound ways. We will meet Christ not as a distant historical figure, but as the living Lord who walks toward us, kneels before us, dies for us, and rises to send us forth. We will be supported in our ongoing conversion, learning what it means to deepen our personal relationship with Jesus; not merely as students of doctrine, but as servants who wash feet and stand at the Cross when others flee. And we will be nurtured in our witness of life, receiving our commission to carry the light of Easter into every corner of the Diocese of Nottingham and the East Midlands, living out our part humbly and joyfully in a world that so desperately needs the Risen Lord.
This week is not just liturgy. It is formation. It is mission. It is the Gospel made flesh in your life. These simple daily reflections have been put together to help you make a sort of mini retreat this Holy Week: a sacred pause each day to encounter Christ more deeply and discern how He is calling you to follow Him. Join us on this sacred journey, and let Holy Week transform you from spectator to disciple, from disciple to missionary disciple.
The Encounter Begins
‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’
Today, we join the crowds welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem. But here’s the question that confronts each of us: Are we just spectators in the crowd, or are we ready to truly encounter Him?
The Diocesan Mission Plan begins with ENCOUNTER: experiencing God’s love in a life-changing moment when we meet Christ not as a distant figure, but as someone present, alive, walking toward us. This is not the Christ of textbooks or tradition alone. This is the Christ who breaks into your reality, who knows your name, who sees you in the crowd.
As the Mission Plan reminds us, we are called to ‘encounter and deepen our appreciation of the immense and unconditional love God has for each one of us.’ This Palm Sunday, Jesus doesn’t just enter Jerusalem. He longs to enter into your life, to show you how deeply and unconditionally you are loved.
Will you wave your palm and walk away? Or will you follow Him through the week ahead, even when the cheers turn to silence, when the crowds disappear, when the path leads to a Cross?
The encounter begins here. But it doesn't end here. The crowds who shout ‘Hosanna!’ today will shout ‘Crucify Him!’ by Friday. The real question isn't whether you'll welcome Jesus when it's easy: it's whether you'll stay with Him when it costs you everything.
🙏 Reflect: When did you first truly encounter Jesus; not just hear about Him, but experience His love for you personally? What would it mean to deepen your appreciation of God's unconditional love this week, perhaps in a way you never have before?
Anointed & Chosen
‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me...’
At the Chrism Mass, Bishop Patrick consecrates the sacred oils that will be used throughout our Diocese this year: for baptisms, confirmations, ordinations, and the anointing of the sick. These oils, blessed by the Bishop’s hands and the prayers of our presbyterate, carry the presence of the Holy Spirit into the most significant moments of Catholic life.
Oil marks us. It sets us apart. It says: ‘You belong to Christ.’
The second pillar in our Diocesan Mission Plan is DISCIPLESHIP: being supported in our ongoing conversion as we develop an ever-deepening personal relationship with Jesus. Not just learning about Jesus, but learning from Him. This is the movement from encounter to formation, from experiencing God’s love to being transformed by it.
You were anointed at Baptism. That oil on your forehead marked you as Christ’s own forever: priest, prophet, and king. At Confirmation, you were sealed with the Spirit, empowered for mission. If you are ordained, you were anointed to serve the People of God. And when we are sick, we are anointed with healing and grace.
But discipleship isn’t a one-time event. It’s ongoing conversion. It’s letting the oil of the Holy Spirit soak deeper into your life each day: softening what is hard, illuminating what is dark, strengthening what is weak. It's recognizing, as the Mission Plan states, that ‘God has created me to do Him some definite service’ (St. John Henry Newman) and opening yourself daily to discover what that service is.
🙏 Reflect: What does it mean to you that you bear Christ’s mark? How is He supporting you in your ongoing conversion this year? What needs to be softened, illuminated, or strengthened in your ever-deepening relationship with Him?
The Master Becomes the Servant
‘If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.’
Tonight, we watch Jesus do the unthinkable: the Master kneels before His disciples with a basin and towel.
This is discipleship. Not theory. Not theology. Action.
Jesus doesn’t give a lecture on humility. He shows it. He doesn't explain love. He lives it. He doesn’t write a treatise on service. He ties a towel around His waist, bends low, and washes the dust from Peter's feet: Peter, who will deny Him. Judas's feet: Judas, who will betray Him. The feet of disciples who will abandon Him in just a few hours.
And then He says: ‘Do this.’
Following Christ means following Him all the way down to our knees, to the floor, to the feet of those we’d rather not touch. To the difficult neighbour. The estranged family member. The person who hurt us. The one society overlooks.
The Mission Plan calls us to live out our witness of life humbly and joyfully, open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Tonight, Jesus shows us exactly how. He doesn’t point to the poor from a distance. He becomes poor. He doesn’t theorise about humility. He kneels.
This is a pivotal moment of Holy Week: a moment when encounter and discipleship meet. Because you cannot wash feet from a distance. You have to get close. You have to touch. You have to serve. And you have to do it humbly, without fanfare, without expecting recognition, just as Jesus did.
🙏 Reflect: Whose feet is Christ asking you to wash? Who needs your service, your presence, your humility? How is the Holy Spirit guiding you to live out your witness of life humbly this week? What would it cost you to kneel before someone you’d rather avoid?
The Encounter That Changes Everything
‘It is finished.’
Today, we stand at the Cross. No music. No celebration. Just silence and wood and nails and love.
This is the ultimate encounter: experiencing God’s love not in theory, but in the most radical, total, and unconditional way possible. Not a God who rescues us from suffering, but One who enters our suffering, our darkness, our death. The God who doesn’t save us from the Cross, but meets us on the Cross.
Good Friday asks one of the hardest questions: Will you stay with Christ?
Will you stay when it’s ugly? When there are no answers? When God seems silent and the stone is cold and everything you hoped for seems to be dying?
The disciples fled.
But Mary stayed. John stayed. The women stayed.
They encountered Christ in His darkest hour and that encounter changed them forever. They didn't understand what was happening. They couldn't see the Resurrection coming. But they stayed. They kept vigil. They refused to let Him die alone. Their ongoing conversion didn’t stop when things got hard; it deepened.
Our Diocesan Mission Plan begins with encounter because you cannot give what you have not received. And what we receive today, standing at the foot of the Cross, is this: You are loved. Completely. Radically. Wholly. Unconditionally. The immense love God has for you is most fully revealed right here: on this wood, in this blood, through these nails. Today, receive His love from the Cross. Let it break you open. Let it shatter your illusions of control, your neat answers, your comfortable faith. Let the Cross be what it is: the place where God’s love and human suffering meet, and somehow, impossibly, love wins.
🙏 Reflect: What do you see when you look at the Cross? How are you experiencing God’s immense and unconditional love for you in this moment? What is God asking you to lay down at His feet today? What comfortable certainty, what cherished sin, what protective wall is He inviting you to surrender in your ongoing conversion?
From Darkness, Light
‘This is the night when Jesus Christ broke the chains of death and rose triumphant from the grave.’
Tonight is the holiest night of the year.
We gather in total darkness, and then, a single flame.
One light. One spark. One impossible hope.
From that one flame, hundreds of candles are lit. Our churches are transformed. What was dead is alive. What was dark is ablaze with glory. The ancient proclamation rings out: ‘Christ our Light!’
This is what happens when ENCOUNTER becomes DISCIPLESHIP becomes MISSION:
• You’ve encountered Christ and experienced God's love: in the crowd, at the table, at the Cross.
• You’ve been supported in your ongoing conversion: anointed, taught, formed, walking with Him through suffering.
• Now? You are nurtured in your witness of life, sent out with fire, open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, ready to live out your part humbly and joyfully.
At this Vigil, catechumens will be baptised. They’ll descend into the waters and rise as new creations, dripping with grace, marked with oil, commissioned to carry Christ’s light into Nottingham’s darkness.
But here’s the truth: So are you.
By virtue of your Baptism, you are called to mission. The light you carry isn’t for you alone. It’s for the person next to you in the pew. For your neighbour who’s struggling. For your co-worker who’s searching. For the people across the East Midlands, especially those who do not yet know the Lord.
As the Mission Plan reminds us, everyone has something to offer. The gifts God has given you- your time, your talents, your witness, your love- are meant to be placed at the service of the commission He entrusts to you. The Diocesan Mission Plan isn’t about grand strategies or complex programmes or endless committee meetings. It’s about ordinary Christians, baptised and beloved, carrying an extraordinary light into the ordinary reality, and sometimes darkness, of daily life.
🙏 Reflect: Where is Christ sending you with His light? How is the Holy Spirit guiding you to witness with your life? What darkness in your life, your street, your workplace needs the flame you carry? Who is waiting for you to be their first glimpse of Easter? What gifts has God given you to place at the service of His mission?
Now, Go!
‘Go and tell my brothers...’
He is risen! Death is defeated! The tomb is empty! The impossible has happened! And the first words from the Risen Christ?
‘Go.’
Not ‘stay comfortable.’ Not ‘keep this to yourself.’ Not ‘wait until you’re perfect.’
GO.
This is MISSION: nurturing our witness of life, living out our part humbly and joyfully in the world. We’ve encountered the Risen Lord and experienced His unconditional love. We are being transformed in our ongoing conversion as His disciples. Now we are being sent out, open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to be His presence in the Diocese of Nottingham and across the East Midlands.
Sent to our families. Our workplaces. Our neighbourhoods. Our schools. Our cities, towns and villages: struggling and searching and beautiful and broken and desperately in need of hope.
The Mission Plan isn’t about programs or committees. It’s about you: baptized, beloved, and commissioned. As St. John Henry Newman wrote, ‘God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another.’ You have a unique mission. No one else can live it. No one else can be Christ's presence in exactly the places you are.
Mary Magdalene went to the tomb expecting death. She found life. She ran to tell the others. She didn't wait for permission. She didn't doubt her worthiness. She didn't form a strategic plan. She simply said: ‘I have seen the Lord!’
She became the first missionary. The Apostle to the Apostles. The one who carried resurrection news to those still locked in fear. She lived out her witness of life humbly and joyfully, guided by the Holy Spirit, placing her gifts at the service of the commission Christ gave her.
This Easter, what will you tell? Whose life will you touch with resurrection hope? What corner of the Diocese of Nottingham will know the Risen Christ because you brought Him there? What definite service has God committed to you that He has not committed to another?
Our encounter deepens. Our ongoing conversion continues. Our mission begins now.
🙏 Reflect: Who is the first person you’ll ‘go and tell’ about Christ's love this week? How are you being called to live out your witness of life humbly and joyfully? What is your next step in mission? How will the people around you know that Easter happened because of the way you live? What gifts will you place at the service of the commission Christ entrusts to you?
Holy Week isn’t just beautiful liturgy; it’s the blueprint for Christian life. As we journey from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, we live out the three movements of our Diocesan Mission Plan:
ENCOUNTER: We experience God’s love. In triumph, in service, in suffering, in light, in resurrection. We don’t just learn about Him; we encounter and deepen our appreciation of the immense and unconditional love God has for each of us.
DISCIPLESHIP: We are supported in our ongoing conversion. The oil marks us. The foot-washing changes us. The Cross breaks us open. The light fills us. We develop an ever-deepening personal relationship with Jesus, not as a one-time event, but as a daily journey of transformation.
MISSION: We are nurtured in our witness of life. Not someday. Not when we’re ready. Now. Open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we go into the Diocese of Nottingham and the East Midlands carrying what we've received. By virtue of our baptism, we place the gifts God has given us at the service of the commission He entrusts to us. We live out our part humbly and joyfully.
This is the pattern of Christian life. This is the rhythm of the Church. This is what it means to follow Jesus. Everyone has something to offer. Everyone has a definite service that God has committed to them and to no other.
As Pope Leo XIV says: ‘Here we go, Lord, you're in charge, you lead the way.’
Will you walk this journey with us? Share your photos, videos and reflections of Holy Week in your parish or chaplaincy with us on social media. Tag @dioceseofnottingham or use the hashtag #gomakedisciplesnotts so we can find your content and share it on our platforms.
Read more about the Diocesan Mission Plan, here.
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