Holy Thursday Reflection
2011
Suffering! Suffering is something that all of us avoid, and yet, none of us can avoid it totally, can we? It can be physical suffering- an illness or operation; it can be emotional suffering- pressures by family or circumstances; or it can be any of the other forms that suffering takes. And yet, when I listen to the passion of Christ, which we hear a couple of times during Holy Week, and which we commemorated in devotion through the Stations of the Scriptural Cross on all of the Fridays of Lent, it brings the suffering that Christ endured for the sins of the world into such clear focus. It reminds me that no matter what I am called to suffer, it pales by comparison to the suffering of Jesus. Jesus understood that His work, the work of salvation, would be made perfect as he subjugated His will to the will of the Father, even if that meant suffering humiliation and pain and torture and death- which it did. That’s a lesson all of us need to learn. That in the course of our lives, we will encounter suffering related to the will of God. And our mission in life is to accept it, because it is part of what all of us need to do in being made perfect in the eyes of God. Why? Because just like Jesus, what awaits us if we are obedient is the glory that Jesus paved the way for all of us to receive as sons and daughter of God.
