Newsletter article April 6 2022
We are watching the images from Ukraine with horror. The human suffering of this war is unimaginable. I have had to turn off the news on several occasions because I couldn’t bear to witness anymore of it.
This war has happened as we have been keeping Lent this year. And the terrors and the cruelty of the war are being revealed more broadly as we are about to begin Holy Week. Some years I have struggle to make sense of the violence of the crucifixion and the death of Our Savior. But this year, given these current events, I find myself recognizing that the painful cruelty of Jesus’ death on a cross isn’t something that happened once upon a time. The rejection of love and the choosing of violence that happened then, happens today.
The death of the innocent person on that cross outside the walls of Jerusalem wasn’t unusual then and it isn’t unusual now. Human life experience has changed, but not nearly as much as we imagine. To me the cross can be a mirror that reflects to us what we are capable of doing to each other, and to the fount of Love who came to live among us. But that cross is also a place where our Lord forgave us for what we did and what we do. It is both mirror and mercy seat at the same time.
We are saved by the same love that we so often reject. Even as we witness of horror of war today, we see a multitude rushing to provide refugee housing, food and medical care as best they can. Instead of being lost in despair, we can still see the light of hope. The Easter victory takes on a deeper meaning in a season like this one.
May God grant you the light of hope this year as we begin our journey through Holy Week to the Triduum and to our Easter moment.
