April 8: Wednesday of Holy Week
Posted by Campus Ministry on Wednesday, April 8, 2020 at 6:00 AM PDT
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The Easter Triduum starts tomorrow. These three days are the pinnacle moment of the liturgical year, when the Church remembers and celebrates Jesus’s passion, crucifixion and resurrection. The Gospel story for today first invites me to pause and reflect back on what has led us to this point in Jesus’s life.
With each passing day, I imagine that it has been evident to Jesus that his prophetic word and work may ultimately be met with death. The consequences were becoming clearer as he continued his mission that challenged the social order of his time and threatened those in power.
As he inevitably faces an impending arrest, Jesus also knows that one of his closest friends is going to be an accomplice in his conviction. When I pause to imagine what Jesus could possibly be going through in this moment, his humanity is revealed to me. I imagine Jesus, who, scared by what’s to come and utterly heartbroken, experiences a depth of suffering that hits his core. In today’s world, with all that weighs heavy on our own hearts and cuts us to our core, Jesus is our companion, who intimately knows what we’re going through because he has been there too.
In the first reading and the psalm, we hear from Isaiah and the psalmist, who, in the midst of their own tribulations, express their assurance in God that gives them strength for the journey ahead. Their belief that God is with them and will not give up on them, is what keeps them steady in the face of vulnerable uncertainty. As Jesus sat at the table with his disciples, perhaps these words of faith echoed in his ears, helping him hold fast to his faith in God and know in the depths of his heart that his suffering will not be the end of the story.
Isaiah proclaims, “God is near! God is [our] help!” May we today lean into trusting that reality. May we open ourselves towards God just as we are, with all that we are feeling and holding, no matter the strength of our faith right now, believing that Jesus is close to our hearts, and knowing that God will see us through, no matter what.