Text for Prayer: Spiritual Exercises no. 230-237

Reflection: At the conclusion of Lent and the Spiritual Exercises, we have so much to be grateful for.  Let us recall with gratitude the ways we have experienced the Trinity’s Love for us throughout the Four Weeks:

• How did the Spirit reveal to you your God-given uniqueness, especially how you have been wonderfully made by God?
• What bondage did you find yourself trapped in during the First Week, and how did Jesus set you free?
• Where and when did you find Jesus speaking to you most powerfully during the Second Week?  What instance particularly drew you to desire to know, love and follow Christ?
• At what point during the Third Week did you feel most free to enter into Jesus’ Passion and receive intimate knowledge that Christ suffered this all for you?
• Where did you encounter the Risen Jesus during the Fourth Week?  In what ways did you experience Christ as the Consoler (and more specifically, your Consoler)?  What point during this week did you feel your heart most moved to follow Jesus?

We haven’t even gotten to the meat of the Contemplatio.  Ignatius has two points of consideration before we begin:

1. Love ought to manifest itself in deeds more than in words.
2. Love consists in a mutual sharing of goods, where the lover shares everything with the beloved, just as every good is shared between the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit.

There is much fruit with these two considerations.  Ignatius is preparing us to grow in deeper awareness of all that God has given and done for us.  He is calling us to be open to an appropriate response to God’s generosity.  Let us consider the following, mindful that we are in the presence of the Trinity, the Virgin Mary and the Heavenly Court:

1. Love is a gift, a continuous mutual exchange of all that one has and is.  Consider the blessings of creation and redemption, how God has called me into being and how Christ has suffered and died, so I might be reconciled to the Father.  When I reflect upon the gifts of creation and then redemption, what sort of offering should I make?  End with the Suscipe (Take Lord, Receive).
2. Love is a reciprocation of being present to the other at each moment.  Consider how God dwells in all creatures, in plants, in animals and in humans.  Indeed, He makes a temple of me, since I have been created in His image and likeness.  When I reflect upon this marvelous honor bestowed upon me, what sort of offering should I make?  End with the Suscipe.
3. Love is a total sharing in every activity.  Consider how God is laboring for me in all the creatures on the earth.  He is not content simply to set things in motion, but toils for my benefit.  He makes trees bear fruit for us, He makes the sun shine upon us, and never ceases to work on my behalf.  When I see the Lord laboring without rest for my good, what sort of offering should I make?  End with the Suscipe.
4. In love we belong to each other; we partake of what is ours.  Finally, consider how all blessings and gifts come from heaven, like water from a fountain.  All the power, justice, goodness and mercy that I possess come from God, who rains them into my soul.  When I see all the gifts God has showered upon me, what sort of offering should I make?  End with the Suscipe.

At the conclusion of the Contemplatio, feel free to speak with the Father, Jesus or Mary about what you have experienced at any point during this prayer period.  You might be drawn to an experience from a previous week or to something related to the four points of the Contemplatio.

How did you experience love shown in deeds more than words, and how are you being called to go and do likewise?  In what way(s) are you called to the mutual sharing of all goods and one’s entirety with the one you love?

Give thanks to God for not only giving you every gift and blessing but being the gift, laboring on your behalf and being with you at every moment.  A growing awareness of these points will help us become able to begin contemplating God’s Love in our every action and to discover that God truly dwells in His creatures and can be found in all things.

Text for Prayer: Jn 20:11-29 and Jn 21:1-25

Mary Magdalena weeps outside an empty tomb and mistakes Jesus for a gardener.  The fearful disciples lock themselves inside their homes.  Thomas doubts and Peter doesn’t recognize Jesus until John points to Him.  At this point, it would seem appropriate for Jesus to scream and rip out His hair.  These people didn’t get it the first time, and they still don’t get it!

Fortunately for the disciples, and for us, Jesus says “peace” and not “payback!”  He asks, “Do you love me?” instead of, “Do you know how you’ve offended me?”  He knows it takes us a little while to understand, and He has all eternity to wait.  Even so, we don’t have all eternity to respond.

We can either mope around a lifeless tomb or turn around and see Life face to face.  We can keep the doors locked or swing them open so that all can hear us boldly proclaim, “Alleluia, alleluia, He has risen, alleluia!”We can panic and ask everyone, “Where is God now?” or we can find God in everyone and in all things. We can demand for proof, which in reality won’t satisfy us for long, or we can ask for certainty of faith while living in doubt.

I do not wish to see the good God here on earth.  No. Not in the least.  And yet I love him.  I also love the Mother of God and the saints very much; but I do not wish to see them neither.  I prefer to live in faith.”-St. Thérèse de Lisieux

When we recognize the Lord preparing a meal for us, we can either munch on a dry energy bar while waiting for the boat to reach the shore, or we can jump into the water and swim as fast as we could to fresh fish roasting on an open fire.

The resurrected Lord is among us.  He walks with us, comforts us, challenges us, cries with us, laughs with us, and feeds us, but when we get caught up with so many things, distancing our lives from the context of the Resurrection, life loses its aim and we continue to search for the living among the dead.

Let us experience the joy that Mary the Mother of God experienced when her only Hope came back from the dead.  All her struggles and silent pondering now made sense to her in context of this new Life.  There is no greater hope than hope in the resurrected Savior who has redeemed all of creation.  What is better than knowing that no defeat is permanent, that death does not have the final say?  Behold, the resurrected One who resurrects hope stands at the shore.  O sons and daughters of the King, what are you waiting for?  Jump!

Reading: John 20:1-9

Reflection: Christ is not dead. He has risen. He is alive.

Go ahead, ask Mary of Magdela, or Peter, or the beloved disciple, or the Mother of Jesus. They will tell you the story. Ask them what they saw while in the soft darkness before daybreak. You’ll hardly believe it.

Just imagine . . .

Nothing remained in that cold tomb except a folded up piece of cloth. Friends of theirs had laid Jesus there just a few days earlier after he was given a betrayer’s death. And now, that tomb was empty. The body gone.

And that scared Peter, John, and Mary. They were afraid of what they did not understand. Really afraid. Wasn’t it enough to crucify Jesus? Did someone really have to steal his body too? When would this hatred and cruelty end? The three followers didn’t think they had it in them to associate with Jesus and his mission much longer, especially since he was dead and his body gone forever. John the Baptizer had been killed. Judas had betrayed Jesus, defected, and killed himself.  Many of the former disciples were nowhere to be seen. Jesus had been crucified. And now someone stole his body, so they thought.

The march to Jerusalem with Jesus now meant nothing but a long, treacherous retreat back home, back to the sea of Galilee.

But at that same time that those three were examining the tomb the whole world was turning upside down. That morning Mary, the mother of Jesus, was slow to wake up in her dark and quiet bedroom. Her little boy was dead. For the first time in as long as she could remember, she felt alone, weak, lonely. She felt as if her heart had died with her son.

Then, in the soft dark, she felt a hand on her shoulder. A warm breath skiped across her forehead. Confused, she barely opened her heavy eyes.

“Mother.”

Jesus, she thought. Oh, what a beautiful dream. My son, Jesus, come back to me.

“Mother.”

“Jesu . . . ”       “Jes . . . ”       ” J . . . ”   “You’re alive. You’re alive!”

She felt his hand on her shoulder and put her hand on top of it. She felt the wound. In an instant she knew that the infinite joy of this moment was as real as the horror of Friday. The horror of death has, in some radical way, turned into joy. Her son had broken through the darkness and had been risen from the dead.

Heartbreak and Joy. Weeping and laughter.

“Jesus, my son, you’re alive! I see you. I see you alive.”

Jesus smiled. “I am alive. All things are possible through my Father, even life over death.”

Praise be Jesus Christ, risen son of the Father. He is risen for Mary, for his disciples, and for you and me. Pray that we may all live in that joy of the resurrection this Easter season.

From the Jesuits at the Spiritual Exercises blog to all of you readers, Happy Easter!

Material for contemplation:  review the whole Passion

Reflection:  Today is a day for remembering, for reflecting on what has happened over these past few days.  After the intense experience of Thursday night and Friday, we may be tempted to look ahead to the consolation of Easter Sunday just to get some relief.  But we have to resist this temptation.  Today, just like the first disciples, all we can see is the ugliness of sin and its wrenching effects: our Lord is dead.

Today a great silence reigns on earth, a great silence and a great stillness.

- Ancient Homily for Holy Saturday

A friend of mine who converted from atheism to Catholicism several years ago said that the most shocking thing he experienced during his first Triduum was coming into the church on Good Friday and seeing the tabernacle empty, its door wide open.  In that moment, it suddenly occurred to him: God is dead.  The phrase that he had stood by all those years as an atheist was absolutely true.  But now it had taken on a whole new depth of meaning that Nietzsche and the other atheist humanists never understood.  Yes, today on Holy Saturday, God really is dead.  But his death is not the expression of his impotence and irrelevance.  Rather, it is the most glorious expression of his love.

In your contemplation today, review in your mind all the events that have taken place from Thursday night to today, re-reading the text if necessary.  Where in Jerusalem do you find yourself as you reflect on these days?  Have you returned to the upper room along with some other disciples?  Where is the Mother of the Lord, and what must she be experiencing at this point?  Can you see how the Lord’s suffering is an expression of his love, or is it still too soon to understand anything?  What is happening around you in Jerusalem at this point?  For us, whatever feasting may be going on at the house of Caiaphas, today is a day of silence and waiting.

If music moves you to greater devotion, listen to Mozart’s setting of Ave Verum Corpus, which captures the spirit of both quiet contemplation and profound awe that Holy Saturday evokes in the disciple who has followed his Lord to the Cross, where he reveals the depths of his love.

Ave verum corpus,
 natum de Maria Virgine,

vere passum, immolatum 
in Cruce pro homine,

cujus latus perforatum
 unda fluxit et sanguine.

Esto nobis praegustatum 
in mortis examine!

❦

Hail, true body, born of the Virgin Mary,

truly suffered, sacrificed on the Cross for mankind,

whose pierced side flowed with water and blood.

Be for us a foretaste in the trial of death!

Text for Prayer: Mt. 26:59-68, Lk. 23:7-11, Mt. 27:11-26

The innocent Son of God was dragged from one tribunal to the next.  His hands were bound and His feet were shackled like the most dangerous of criminals. He was charged with crimes that merited death while the crowd insulted Him. His judges sat in judgment of the Eternal Judge while His friends were nowhere to be found.

Consider the palace of Caiaphas. Here the Sanhedrin were gathered. The Sanhedrin were entrusted with leading the worship of God in the temple. They worked closely with their Roman governors and found ways to abuse their privileges. They were no longer living for the faith, but they found a way to make a living by the faith– attempting to serve both God and Mammon. Subordinating themselves to temporal powers, now they sat in judgment of the Divine King.

Christ’s message must have driven them mad. He was the beloved teacher, proclaiming a pure heart to be the greatest offering to God.  He seemed to prefer children, fishermen, lepers and sinners to ecclesial dignitaries. While they sought crowns of gold, they offered Him one of thorns which He accepted in silence.

Jesus was interrogated. Was He asked about some strange doctrine? Was He asked His opinion of the law? No. He was asked if He was indeed the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of the Living God. This is what threatened His accusers. This question is the summit of all that can be said about Him. The answer Our Lord gave had to be written in His blood.

After the worldly churchmen pronounced Christ a blasphemer, there came the king. Herod had but one goal in life: to find satisfaction in amusement. Religion was only a source of entertainment. Now the Divine King went before the earthly one, the same one who had murdered John the Baptist.

Herod seemed uninterested in the charges of Our Lord’s accusers; his only interest was to be amused by the Incarnate Word of God. The earthly king was met with silence.  So Herod mocked Him, forcing further humiliation upon an already broken victim.

Jesus was then brought before the clever politician. In Pilate’s world, religion had no significance. He lived for this world because his eyes could see nothing more. Strangely proud of his own sense of justice, Pilate seemed reluctant to condemn someone who appeared to be no threat. Pilates overriding concern, however, was the governance of a people that he both hated and feared.

To save his own sense of justice, Pilate could have denied Our Lord’s accusers their demands. Of course, he would have had to face a revolt on the part of his Jewish subjects. His superiors in Rome would have taken his post away and he would have been disgraced. He might have gone down in history as the first martyr for Christ. Instead, Pilate is remembered as the one under whom Christ suffered and died.

Be with Christ as the powers of this world mistreat Him. Allow yourself to feel the motivations of His accusers, recognizing a glimmer of this sin in yourself. Then run to His side. Loathe the privilege of the Sanhedrin. Reject what they embraced. Shake your head clear of Herod’s intoxicating lifestyle. See with the eyes of truth all that is fading in Herod’s world. Detest Pilate’s shortcomings. Beg God for the courage to act with conviction for justice.  Most of all, cling to Our Lord. Let the insults that were heaped upon Him give you comfort. Accept your own crown of thorns and welcome the humiliations that marked our Divine King during His trial.

Pray: Oh Lord, You were reviled by the men entrusted with watching for your arrival. You were mocked by the men set up as guardians for Your people. You were found unworthy of defense by the powers charged with the work of justice. Forgive me for my same failings. Change my heart.  Count me worthy to be in Your company. Call me closer to You and hide me within Your wounds.

Text for Prayer:  Keep your eyes on Jesus. Lk 22: 47-60

The mob breaks the silence of the dark night and charges toward Jesus with Judas leading the way. The disciple kisses his master on the cheek, and with that gesture of peace perverted, the restless mob grabs and arrests Jesus.  The momentarily zealous Peter runs off and denies knowing his friend not once but three times. As those closest to Jesus move further and further away, the night becomes darker and darker.  The Man who comforted the poor, healed the sick, and forgave sinners is now Jerusalem’s most wanted criminal.

On this night when power is weakness, reason is reversed, and confidence is shattered, what heart could be proud, what head could remain high?   There’s no honor in apprehending an innocent man.  There’s no glory in saving one’s life at the cost of another’s life.  Who can boast of anything this night when the Reason for humanity’s boasting is being taken away?

That night many of the disciples learned that they had too much confidence in themselves and too little in God.  Their reliance on themselves was worse than their abandonment of the Lord.  After the betrayal, Peter’s shame pulverized his ego, and only then was he able to let Christ be his only strength so that he could rise up again and lead Christ’s Church.

Fr. Walter Ciszek, S.J. spent fifteen years in confinement in Moscow.  Out of hunger, exhaustion, and fear of death, he signed confessions of absurd crimes (e.g. espionage for the Vatican) that he knew he did not commit.  He was certain he had what it took to be a martyr of Christ, but he realized after he signed the confessions that he made a terrible mistake in replacing reliance on Christ alone with self-reliance.  He never wanted to repeat Peter’s boast ever again. “Even if I have to die with You, I will never deny You!” became “Jesus, I trust in You.”

As we head to Calvary, let us prepare to nail our egos to Christ’s cross.

Somehow, that day, I imagined I must know how Saint Peter felt when he had survived his denials and been restored to Christ’s friendship…. I doubt very much that Peter ever again boasted that he would never desert the Lord even if all others deserted him…. For just as surely as man begins to trust in his own abilities, so surely has he taken the first step on the road to ultimate failure.  And the greatest grace God can give such a man is to send him a trial he cannot bear with his own powers—and then sustain him with his grace so he may endure to the end and be saved. -Venerable Fr. Walter Ciszek, S.J., He Leadth Me

Text: Matthew 26:36-46

Reflection: Stay awake with Jesus.

“My heart is nearly broken with sorrow” (Matt. 26:38).  Jesus is experiencing deep inner turmoil as His hour approaches.  From a human standpoint Jesus’ ministry appears to end in failure.  The Jewish leaders reject Him as the Messiah, the disciples seem clueless and the masses will consent to His crucifixion.  Despite this, Jesus seeks to fulfill the Father’s Will.  Jesus’ interior suffering was also reflected in His physical suffering.

“And his sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground” (Lk. 22:44).

Worst of all, Jesus appears alone.  His trusted disciples, Peter, James and John, are falling asleep as Jesus is tearfully praying before the Father.  Jesus chose to guard His disciples from the pain in His heart because He loved them and He knew they would not be able to bear it.

We are at a crucial point in the Spiritual Exercises.  It would be easy to “nod off.”  The enemy of our human nature is aware of how much spiritual profit one can experience during the Third Week.  Therefore, he will seek to deter us from experiencing an intimate knowledge of Jesus amidst His agony.

In this scene, Jesus is not calling us to take His pain away nor to lighten His burden, but to simply stay awake with Him.  In our active culture, this may be difficult for us to do.  We want to fix things and make things better.  But in this scene, Jesus has accepted His fate.  He will suffer and die.  All we can do is what Jesus desires for us – to simply be with Him.

If you have ever visited someone in the hospital who was suffering greatly and/or near death, the desire is the same.  The hospitalized person wants to know that he/she is not alone.  This person wants to feel the presence of another.  Jesus is seeking the same from us.  He does not need our words but seeks our presence.  To show compassion is to “suffer with.”  We can allow Jesus’ suffering to enter into our interiority so that we can become one in mind and heart with our Lord.

Additionally in this scene, I believe Jesus wishes to reveal to us His Sacred Heart in a deeper way.  Jesus’ Heart is powered by such a rich love that permits Him to undergo such dreadful interior suffering.  Jesus allows us to enter into His vulnerability and weakness, enabling us to experience authentic intimate knowledge of Him.  If you feel drawn here, one may find tremendous fruit in simply contemplating the Sacred Heart during Jesus’ Agony in the Garden.

Finally, let us keep in mind that Jesus chooses to endure this suffering on our behalf.  Jesus’ love for each one of us permitted Him to say yes to the Father’s Will and to fulfill it, despite the agony He experienced along the way.  In gratitude for Jesus’ love for each one of us, let us stay awake with Jesus.

Questions: Placing yourself in the scene at the Garden of Gethsemane, what do you experience as you see, hear and feel Jesus in agony?  What is Jesus saying to the Father and to you during this scene?  What is your response to Jesus’ choice to fulfill the Father’s Will and to endure great suffering for you?

If you feel moved, spend some time speaking to Jesus or Mary about what you have experienced.

Reading: John 15: 1-17

Reflection:

Where you there when they crucified my Lord?
Where you there when they crucified my Lord?
O, sometimes, it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Where you there when they crucified my Lord?

It takes a lot to cause a grown man to tremble. A Man trembles in an earthquake. He trembles from a heart attack or a stroke. He trembles after a good blow to the jaw or stomach.

So how many people will be physically trembling on Friday afternoon when we remember Christ’s Crucifixion?

Few, I imagine.

But the trembling of our hearts is something entirely different. No doubt, come Friday, Christians all across the globe will enter into their daily prayers with their hearts trembling, nervous and uncertain.

Why will our hearts tremble?

Because we have come to love the very man who we abandoned to die a traitor’s death on a Roman cross. Moreover, because he hangs on that cross loving us all the more, his body pouring out the only things he had left to give: love and mercy.

Personally, my sisters and brothers, that causes me to tremble.

Despite my betrayal of Jesus, I still must say that I love him. I feel that love in my heart, in my bones. And, like it did for Peter on the night of the Last Supper, that love causes me to weep, to tremble. I think we come love Christ because we have gotten to know him. The more we know him through the Sacraments, life experience, service, and contemplation, the harder it is to ignore that love.

This Lent, we have had a lot of chances to come to know Jesus a bit better. We have contemplated his birth and baptism, his parables and miracles. Now (and in the days to come) we contemplate his Last Supper:

We know his voice when we hear his command, “Love one another.”

We know his body and blood through eating the bread and the wine.

We know his humility in allowing him to wash our feet.

We know Christ and, in knowing him, we cannot help but love him. In loving him, we are moved to tremble. Really, I mean it, weep and tremble. We can hardly take it in when we taste, or hear, or see Jesus’ love for what it really is. All we can do is let is wash over us, tremble in its waves, and pray that we may not act contrary to that love, but bear it faithfully to the rest of the world.

Friends, the time for the Kingdom is at hand. Taste his body and blood. Let your feet be washed. Listen to his final commands of humble service. Remember that you are a branch to the vine that is Jesus Christ. Open your heart and allow his love to enter.

Oh, and beware that in giving of yourself to his love, you just might tremble.

Text:  Luke 20:19 – 21:4

Reflection:  In these final few days before his death, Jesus comes to the Temple every day to teach the people, to communicate to them the Word of the Father.  Out of love for us, he continues to labor, even as it has become obvious to everyone that his days are numbered.

The Lord spends much of his last week answering questions.  But they are fake questions — which is to say, not really questions at all.  The people who pose them have not come to Jesus in search of answers.  They come to do combat with him, laying questions like traps.  If Jesus answers in one way, they reason to themselves, he will alienate the people.  If he answers in another way, it will be possible to convict him of a violation of the Law.  Either way, these questions will be the gotcha moment they have been waiting for.

The trouble is, none of the questions succeed in baiting Jesus.  The truth of the Word is impervious.  The scribes and chief priests send spies to ask him about whether Jews ought to pay taxes to Caesar.  If he says yes, he risks looking like the hated Roman puppet-king Herod.  If he says no, his enemies will be able to denounce him to Pilate as a dangerous revolutionary.  Jesus turns the question on its head: sure, give to Caesar the things that belong to him, but you must also give to God the even more important things that belong to him (genuine praise, reverence, and service).  And how often have you paid those “taxes” ?

The Sadducees come along later with a riddle about the resurrection of souls from the dead (which they thought was a silly idea).  Jesus not only shows them the logical inconsistencies of their own position, but even more importantly reveals them to be completely uninterested in the truth.

After all this, Jesus asks a question of his own.  ”How can they say that the Christ is David’s son?”  Now here is a real question.  It goes right to the heart of the mystery of the Incarnation.  How can the Messiah be both the descendent of David and also his Lord?  How can God have become man?  For all the fake questions that flood the Temple in the last week of Jesus’ life, here is a question that all those seeking the truth in every age will have to ask.  And they must not turn inwards in the process.  They must not simply ask themselves how this can be, relying on their own limited capacities to come to an answer.  They must ask the Word himself.  Only he can reveal the truth.

Even without our asking, the Lord gives us the answer at the end of this week.  And the answer is love.  The wonderful theologian Fr Hans Urs von Balthasar has written, “what God wishes to say to man is a deed on his behalf.”  After all the talk has finished, God speaks to man in what he does for him.  And the Word that he speaks to man is “the love…that descends ‘to the end’ of the night of death in Christ.”  The Word he speaks, the Word he effects, is Love.

Notice at the end of our text for today how Jesus points to a radiance of this same love in the most unlikely of places: a poor little widow, completely overlooked by the important officials who have come to do combat with the Lord.  She has not come to the Temple for any reason other than to seek the Lord and to show him her love.  The two pennies that she gives to the Lord is “all the living that she had,” and thus an offering of her entire self.

Where do you find yourself at this point in the retreat as we have come up with the Lord to Jerusalem?  What questions do you have for him?  What questions does he have for you?  Is there space in you to receive the Word and let it form you from within?

Heaven and earth will pass away,

but my words will not pass away.

— Luke 21:33 

[The citations above come from Balthasar's book, Love Alone Is Credible.]

Are you ready for it? To be honest, I don’t think I am. You see, Palm Sunday always makes me nervous. I am timid to contemplate about the Pharisee’s conniving plans, Jesus’ passion and death, and the disciples’ betraying fear. Those contemplations take me to places within my own nature (and the nature of the world) that I would much rather skip over.

But I am consoled to imagine that Jesus and his disciples were just as nervous and scared (if not more so) to enter Jerusalem: to be hailed as a King by some and sought out for blasphemy and treason by others. I realize in that consoling identification with the situation of Jesus and the disciples that, whether or not I am “ready” for Holy Week, already Christ is drawing me into it.

So it is for all of us. Whether we are “ready” or not, we have entered Holy Week. We are walking with Christ, surrounded by the Poor, passing through the gates of the great city Jerusalem and preparing ourselves for the events to come.

To walk through this world as a Christian is to walk as Christ walked, talk as he talked, serve as he served, pray as he prayed. It means to embrace both the cross and the crucifier. It means to comfort the oppressed and the oppressor. It is a giving of ourselves (even in uncertainty and fear) in trust to God who is loving and merciful. It means to pray, to hope, to love. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Let us give of ourselves to that Kingdom in the hope that God will raise us up.

Christ’s story is nothing new, but it is forever fresh. The words of today’s first reading from the prophet Isaiah capture what it is to identify ourselves with the mission of Christ and the Kingdom of God.

The Lord GOD has given me
a well-trained tongue,
that I might know how to speak to the weary
a word that will rouse them.
Morning after morning
he opens my ear that I may hear;
and I have not rebelled,
have not turned back.
I gave my back to those who beat me,
my cheeks to those who plucked my beard;
my face I did not shield
from buffets and spitting.

The Lord GOD is my help,
therefore I am not disgraced;
I have set my face like flint,
knowing that I shall not be put to shame.

(Is 50:4-7)

Ready or not, Jesus is inviting the Church, you and I, to join him in his passion and death so as to enter more fully in his glorious resurrection. Humbly, let us go.