Monday of Holy Week
Before I entered the monastery,
and was working “in the world” in addition to being Organist and Choir Director
at a local church, I used to take Holy Week off beginning on Wednesday. It was
my favorite time of the year because I was able to devote myself completely to
the music and to the liturgy without any other distractions or concerns. It is
no wonder that the seeds of my vocation as a monk were being sown back then.
Now I live a life that is completely devoted to the liturgy, 365 days a year,
and as Abbey Choirmaster my main work for the community is to serve the Liturgy
and in doing so, to serve the Lord and to relive the precious time in His earthly
life as it moves toward its completion, and then to celebrate with joy His life
beyond the grave.
While Monday, Tuesday and
Wednesday are not principal liturgical days during Holy Week, they do set the
scene for what is to come. Every year on Monday we read of Jesus’ visit to
Bethany to His friends Martha, Mary and Lazarus. Mary anoints His feet with
costly aromatic oil, and Jesus Himself says that she is anointing him for the
time of his burial.
I am particularly moved this
year by the last sentence in the Gospel for the Day (John 12:1-11): “The chief priests plotted to kill Lazarus
too, because many of the Jews were turning away and believing in Jesus because
of him.”
There we have a man whom Jesus
has raised from the dead. The hearts and minds of the chief priests were
so hardened by their own lust for power and control that they couldn’t even
realize that Lazarus was a walking miracle and one of the ultimate signs that
Jesus was the Messiah. They should have been reverencing Lazarus, not plotting
to kill him. It baffles the imagination to consider how locked up was their
ability to see and experience reality.
Can that happen to us as well?
Can we be so closed up and focused on only our own agendas that we fail to see
that all around us are walking miracles? We have no knowledge of just how much
Jesus Christ has done for those we rub shoulders with day after day—with how He
has healed, with how many He has already rescued from lives that were already
dead through sin, with those who were engulfed in darkness who now life in the
light. Yes, we are surrounded with walking miracles and we cannot realize it.
But what would happen, and how would our world change if we could learn
to reverence each and every person we encounter, and to bow deeply before the
mystery that is the life of every person we meet?
One more question to ponder:
Might if be possible, with God’s grace, that we may lead the type of life that
would cause another human being to turn away from the life they know, and to
believe in Jesus because of us? Because of us!
God bless you.
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