Wednesday of Holy Week
This morning I had a chance to meet
with a group of people, not all of them Christian, who were living difficult
and troubled lives, and who were struggling to keep their heads above water. My
heart when out to them and I admired their courage and their willingness to
speak from the heart directly and sincerely and without any need to put up a
good front or to “look good.”
Several of them spoke about
having the feeling from time to time that they welcomed death as a release from
their pain and suffering, and how at some times they felt like they were at “the
end of their ropes” and had little or no energy to keep going on. What could I
possibly say to them?
I decided to take a plunge and
talk about Holy Week despite the variety of religious traditions present in the
room. I gave a brief description, trying to keep it as “secular” as possible
because this was not a setting where I could preach or proselytize. They knew I
was a priest, and so that fact spoke enough to them. So: what to say?
Finally, this is what I said,
and I give thanks to the Holy Spirit for guiding my words because I wasn’t
really sure what to say: “Basically, the observance of Holy Week and Easter is like
going through a process. It’s meaning is that it is by pressing through
pain that we end up on the other side and win the victory and the cessation of
suffering.” And that is all I had to say. Several of the people in the room
looked like I had just revealed a great secret to them that they had never
discovered before. I didn’t need to say any more.
When I reviewed the Gospel for
today’s Mass (Matthew 26:14-25) I recognized our Lord in already in pain. It
was the Passover Supper—the final night He would be with His disciples. On some
level he knew what was to come, but there He was in a room surrounded by
friends, in a room where one might suppose there was a great deal of love and
devotion, and despite all that he had to come face to face with his betrayer
who would soon leave the room and go about his nasty business.
This Gospel passage sets before
us one of the many “Stations of Pain” that the Lord has to experience on His
own way to Calvary, through death, and then to glorified Resurrection and
victory. This year, as I enter the Holy Week process, I will remember in a
special way the precious men and women I had spoken with this morning, along
with all the other suffering people in the world whose lives contain more pain
than joy at this time in our troubled history.
May the Lord of life be with
you.
