Coming up in 6 days, we arrive at the most important Mass of the entire church year, a beautiful and majestic hours-long tapestry of symbolism, poetry, and powerful scripture recounting the story of Salvation History. This is the Easter Vigil. This Mass is also when the Church grows since the Easter Vigil is the night when catechumens can receive the Catholic sacrament of Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Communion on the same night. The Easter Vigil is a one-of-akind Mass, more different than a regular Sunday liturgy than any other Mass of the year.

The most sacred three days of the entire year in the Church is the Sacred Triduum, encompassing Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. The liturgy, and yes, it is a single liturgy that spans the course of three days, is a tapestry of symbolism, poetry, and sublime beauty.

It has been nearly 800 years since perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament began in Avignon, France, a practice that has now spread throughout the world. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, perpetual adoration refers to adoration of the Blessed Sacrament without interruption or with pauses for only short periods of time.

We are only about halfway through Lent, but I wish to look forward to what awaits us at the close of this season: Holy Week and Easter. Holy Week begins on April 13 with Palm Sunday and continues to Holy Saturday, when we celebrate the most important, elaborate, and beautiful Mass of the year: the Easter Vigil. Beginning with the first day of Holy Week, Palm Sunday is when we remember Christ’s entrance into the Holy City of Jerusalem, days before His crucifixion, with people greeting him with palm fronds as may be custom for a victorious king. Later in that same Mass, we recount our Lord’s Passion on the Cross during the Gospel.

During this season of Lent, we are asking everyone to depart the church after our Masses in silence, to better contemplate the mystery of the Mass and understand the sacredness of the action we just partook in.

“The main current of Lent must flow through the interior man, through hearts and consciences. The essential effort of repentance consists in this. In this effort, the human determination to be converted to God is invested with the predisposing grace of conversion and, at the same time, of forgiveness and of spiritual liberation… Penance is not just an effort, a weight, but it is also a joy. Sometimes, it is a great joy of the human spirit, a delight that other sources cannot bring forth.

In just a few days, we will enter into the Liturgical Season of Lent on Ash Wednesday. Lent is a time of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. It calls us to reflect on the blessings God has given us and how we should journey to be more united with Him. Below are two perspectives on how to encounter God during Lent: one from Pope Francis and another from Pope Benedict XVI.