Today we
begin the celebration of Holy Week, a very special time when we
reflect on the events that lead us through the death and resurrection
of Jesus; events which changed the course of history forever. Because
of these events we can now go to heaven when we die. It is that
simple.
We begin with
a short account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, hailed by the
people as a great prophet. They threw down palm branches in front of
him and shouted ‘Hosanna! Blessings on him who comes in the name of
the Lord.’ Yet within a few days everything changed. He was
betrayed for money, illegally tried, then tortured and killed. Today
we read the full account of his passion. It is the main focus of our
mass.
Even though
it is a sad event that we remember, it is also a day of celebration,
because what we remember is the wonderful event that made it possible
for us to experience the eternal life after this one. That is so
important, because if we couldn’t hope for a better life after this
one, it would be very hard to keep going a lot of the time. In one of
his letters to the Christians in Corinth, St. Paul wrote, ‘If our
faith in Christ has been for this life only, then of all people we
are the most to be pitied.’ If we think that this life is what it’s
all about, we have completely missed the point. The truth is that we
are preparing for something wonderful that is waiting for us, should
we choose it.
Everyone
suffers, as we know; there are no exceptions. Probably one of the
most difficult things for any of us to experience when we are
suffering, is the sense that we have been abandoned by everyone.
But even if everyone else seems to abandon us, at least we can always
turn to God. But where do we turn if God disappears too? There is
nowhere left to go. This is the worst kind of suffering, verging on
despair. God never abandons us, but we may feel that He has.
Just before
Jesus’ death on the cross, he cries out: ‘My God, my God, why
have you abandoned me?’ What does this mean? It is the beginning of
Psalm 22 which is a Psalm that ends in victory, but it can also be
understood in a different way. It seems to point out that even Jesus
felt completely abandoned by the Father. He felt totally alone.
Why would God
the Father hide himself from Jesus at the time when Jesus most needed
to know He was there? Perhaps it was so that Jesus could experience
this worst kind of suffering, the suffering of believing that you
have been abandoned even by God. By experiencing this, Jesus is
brought to the furthest extreme of suffering. After this there is
nothing that he has not experienced and this means that he can
understand us in every kind of suffering we go through, even the
feeling of being abandoned by God, because he has been there. We can
no longer say, ‘You don’t know what it’s like!’ because now
he does.
Even though
we may feel we have been abandoned by God at times, in fact we
have not. But sometimes God allows us to go through this for reasons
only known to God. It seems to be part of what forms us, even though
it is very difficult and we shrink away from it. Many of the saints
went through this feeling of abandonment, including Mother Teresa.
Here is something from her own writings to her spiritual director:
Now
Father—since 49 or 50 this terrible sense of loss—this untold
darkness—this loneliness—this continual longing for God—which
gives me that pain deep down in my heart.—Darkness is such that I
really do not see—neither with my mind nor with my reason.—The
place of God in my soul is blank.—There is no God in me.—When the
pain of longing is so great—I just long & long for
God—and then it is that I feel—He does not want me—He is not
there.—...God does not want me.—Sometimes—I just hear my own
heart cry out—‘My God’ and nothing else comes.—The torture
and pain I can’t explain.—p1.
—Mother
Teresa: Come
be my Light,
(edit.) Brian Kolodiejchuk, London: Rider Books, 2007.
That’s not
what you expect to hear from someone like Mother Teresa, who was such
a light of hope for so many people, yet God allowed her to go through
this darkness too.
Finally, I
want to mention Our Lady. She also was at the foot of the cross.
Years before she had been told by the angel Gabriel that Jesus would
be great and would reign forever as king. He would be called Son of
the Most-High God. What had happened to all these promises now, as
she watched Jesus come to the end of his life before her eyes?
Although Mary must have suffered terribly with all she had to
witness, she didn’t give up hope. She believed that what God had
said would come true and she hoped and believed even without
understanding. God invites us to do the same; to hope even when we
don’t understand.
The end of
Psalm 22, which begins with the cry of abandonment, ‘My God, my
God, why have you abandoned me?’ ends with the following words:
The Lord reigns, the ruler
of nations.
Before
him all the prosperous of the earth will bow down,
Before
him will bow all who go down to the dust.
And
my soul will live for him, my children will serve him;
People
will proclaim the Lord to generations still to come,
His
righteousness to a people yet unborn.
These
things the Lord has done. (Ps 22:28-31)
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