To me, Holy Week is a little like the spiritual equivalent of watching the end of a Rocky movie…but in a serious way. Rocky always gets smashed around through the middle of the climatic bout, until he is pushed to the limit and turns it around in dramatic fashion. You know he’s going to win (or get really close to it in Rocky I) but you are still at the edge of your seat.
For me Holy Week always holds a tension between trying to enter into this meditation on Christ’s own suffering and what I know happens Easter Sunday. I think of how He was betrayed by friends, humiliated, and of how badly fear and doubt assailed him in the Garden the night before His Passion. But there is also the inspiring strength that comes to Him when He says, with new-found resolve: “…still, not my will but yours be done.”
Today’s readings cause me to think about this tension between the suffering that we reflect upon this week and the victory that we know we have received in the Resurrection. I look at crushing sadness and pain in parts of the world torn by war and injustice, or the obstacles that we encounter in our communities, the lives of the people I meet in my daily life, and I wait for One who “shall bring forth justice to the nations.” Today’s reading from Isaiah is a reminder to me that the One who was sent by God and strengthened by Angels walks always with us and when each day arrives with its challenges, Christ stands ready to fight with the power of unimaginable love. If fear and doubt overwhelm me, I am called again to trust that they can’t overwhelm Him, as the Cross could not keep Him in the grave.
Reflection Questions:
How will I allow Christ to accompany me in my sufferings and fears as I accompany him to the Cross on Good Friday?
Mary anointed Christ with oil and her hair. How do I praise God by offering all I have? Do I act selfishly, as Judas does?
How has God given me new (in)sight, or given me life through my life in CLC? How have I been able to be “a light to the nations” sharing life within my CLC and in the wider Church and world?
reflected by Jason Coito
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