The video above is Sarah Kroger leading Night Prayer for Mondays during Lent.  You can read the words for Night Prayer tonight here.  At the beginning of four out of five hours of the Liturgy of the Hours, we start with the sign of the cross and saying, "God come to my assistance.  Lord, make haste to help me."  Everyday, those who pray the Liturgy of the Hours ask God to assist them and to make haste in doing so.  It's this making haste I want to emphasize today.  If you watch the video, it sure looks like Sarah Kroger is slowing down.  And yet, that's not inconsistent with asking the Lord to make haste in helping us.

     We also are invited to make haste at certain times.  Passiontide is one of them.  We're in the last two weeks of Lent.  It's time to make haste to Holy Week.  Here's a little introduction to Holy Week in the Diocese of Trenton.  I just posted our parish Holy Week schedule on our website, https://www.stjohnlakehurst.com/.  It's also in the bulletin.

     We prayed for a lot of deceased people at Sunday Masses.  Many people have been making haste to see Jesus face-to-face.  When we think about God's will for us to be with Him in Heaven, it makes a lot more sense to make haste to repent of our sins and follow Jesus.  God is eager to give us the grace to do just that.

     Making haste doesn't mean being busy.  To avoid boredom, we sometimes make haste doing mindless things.  That's not good.  Wasting time from a worldly point of view may be just the thing to do.  Make haste in "wasting time" with God and loved ones.  Fr. Michael Rennier talks about these ideas in ‘Diary of a Country Priest’ and the biggest problem we face today.  The article caught my eye because I recently began reading Diary of a Country Priest.