Scripture
“My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”
Psalm 22:1
Reflection
These words spoken by Jesus as He hung on the Cross take on a new relevance and meaning this year. Our daily news and social media feeds are filled with stories of the advance of COVID-19 across our nation and our world. Both young and old are struck down with this illness. Many die. Health care professionals are asked to perform at superhuman levels – and they do it. Resources are stretched and exhausted. We don’t know where to turn or what will happen. Rightfully, we are scared.
We feel alone and abandoned. We can almost feel Jesus’s words.
And then, in the midst of our drama of human suffering, we as Christians enter into this most sacred time: Holy Week and its culmination in the celebration of Easter.
Though some of us may want to move quickly to the end and get on with the celebration, we cannot rush our movement through this sacred time any more than we can wish away the international pandemic. We simply have to move through it. There is no Easter without Good Friday; there is no empty tomb without the Cross.
But we can bear our suffering because we have hope. Hope that this sickness will end; hope that soon we can be physically present to each other again; hope that we will get through this crisis.
Biblical scholars point out that Jesus’s word from the Cross were, in fact, a recitation of Psalm 22 – a biblical text that ends in the proclamation that God does not ultimately abandon us. God does hear us, and God will heal us.
God is present to us even in the moments in which He seems most absent. At this moment, let us all take heart in this profound truth.
Practice
So for this week, as we move into the observance of Good Friday, let us resolve to take a few moments just to breathe: to stop and focus on our breath, to tell ourselves it is alright to be afraid, and to remind ourselves, that it is enough just to get through this day. God will take care of the rest.
Fr. Jordan Lenaghan, O.P., Chaplain