The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today invite contemplation of our preparedness to serve as people who bring light and hope to situations where darkness and betrayal are present.
Serve hope and Love
The reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah presents the Servant’s Mission to bring light to the darkness of the world.
* [49:1–7] The second of the four “servant of the Lord” oracles (cf. note on 42:1–4). * [49:1] Gave me my name: designated me for a special task or mission (cf. Jer 1:5). * [49:3] Israel: the servant is identified with the people of Israel as their ideal representative; however, vv. 5–6 seem to distinguish the servant from Israel. * [49:6] The servant’s vocation extends beyond the restoration of Israel in order to bring the knowledge of Israel’s God to the rest of the earth; cf. Lk 2:32.1
Psalm 71 is a prayer for lifelong protection and help.
* [Psalm 71] A lament of an old person (Ps 71:9, 18) whose afflictions are interpreted by enemies as a divine judgment (Ps 71:11). The first part of the Psalm pleads for help (Ps 71:1–4) on the basis of a hope learned from a lifetime’s experience of God; the second part describes the menace (Ps 71:9–13) yet remains buoyant (Ps 71:14–16); the third develops the theme of hope and praise.2
In the Gospel of John, Jesus foretells His betrayal and Peter’s denial.
* [13:1] Before the feast of Passover: this would be Thursday evening, before the day of preparation; in the synoptics, the Last Supper is a Passover meal taking place, in John’s chronology, on Friday evening. To the end: or, “completely.” * [13:2] Induced: literally, “The devil put into the heart that Judas should hand him over.”3
The moral that Molly Mattingly takes from that story today is that God’s goal might be different than we imagine, and therefore our definition of failure might be different than God’s.
The important thing is to trust God and to keep communicating with God. In the second half of the first reading, Isaiah rejoices because of what God did after he seemed to work in vain for so long. God made him more than a servant to Israel, but a light to the whole world! We respond with the psalm, “I will sing of your salvation. … For you are my hope, O LORD; my trust, O God, from my youth.” This is where we’re headed this week, and where Jesus is situated in today’s Gospel: it’s about to look like all his ministry and promise was for nothing, a failure. And yet! The glory of the Resurrection is around the corner, and that Easter morning light will gild everything that came before it.4
Don Schwager quotes “Fight sin and put up with trials,” by Saint Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 A.D.
"Your first task is to be dissatisfied with yourself, fight sin, and transform yourself into something better. Your second task is to put up with the trials and temptations of this world that will be brought on by the change in your life and to persevere to the very end in the midst of these things." (excerpt from Commentary on Psalm 59,5)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on Isaiah 49:1-6 comments that Jesus didn’t come just for the first disciples or the early Church. He came for our next-door neighbor. He came for the person driving past us on the highway. He came for the spouse in a difficult marriage or in the throes of addiction. He came for those people who have yet to come to faith. Jesus came for every person. He wants every single one of us to know him as Lord.
There is no darkness, whether it be a tough situation or a hardened or wounded heart, that is beyond God’s ability to touch. There is no sin he can’t forgive. As it says in today’s first reading, it would be “too little” for his servant to restore only the survivors of Israel (Isaiah 49:6). Jesus came to bring his light to everyone. What a message of encouragement this must have been to the Israelites—as it is for each one of us!6
Joseph A. Tetlow, SJ, currently the director of the Montserrat Jesuit Retreat House in Lake Dallas, Texas, offers an Examen for Holy Week.
Friar Jude Winkler shares the meekness that accompanies the mysterious suffering servant called to die for our sins in Isaiah. The Gospel of John is specific in identifying Judas and evil of the night. Friar Jude reminds that the hour of glory is Jesus Love on the Cross.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, comments that the mystery of the cross teaches us how to stand against hate without becoming hate, how to oppose evil without becoming evil ourselves. We find ourselves stretching in both directions—toward God’s goodness and also toward recognition of our own complicity in evil. In that moment, we will feel crucified. We hang in between, without resolution, our very life a paradox held in hope by God (see Romans 8:23–25).
Etty Hillesum (1914–1943), a young Jewish woman who was killed at Auschwitz. In her diary, she recreates a conversation with her friend, writer Klaas Smelik, about the hatred and bullying she saw within her own community. “Klaas, all I really wanted to say is this: we have so much work to do on ourselves that we shouldn’t even be thinking of hating our so-called enemies. We are hurtful enough to one another as it is. And I don’t really know what I mean when I say that there are bullies and bad characters among our own people, for no one is really “bad” deep down. I should have liked to reach out to that [bully] with all his fears, I should have liked to trace the source of his panic, to drive him ever deeper into himself, that is the only thing we can do, Klaas, in times like these.”7
We meditate on the message for us in the paradox of the Cross and our call to be light in the darkness.
References
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