by Sister Robert Moser, CSSF
There is so much going on this week in our Scripture readings. As we walk the walk
from Palm Sunday to Easter through the Thursday arrest and the Friday execution and
the long Saturday wait in the void, imagine all of us, changing our minds, renewing our
minds, altering our opinions concerning ourselves and our neighbors and our world.
As our minds change, we come to a new freedom.
During this season of Lent, we have stood between the Christ of suffering love and
worldly ways, temptations. We’ve stood being pulled in both directions and sensed
the ambiguities of our lives, wishing to care and be generous, but wanting also to be
selfish and have it our own way. Lent was about being drawn to Jesus’ way in the world,
to Jesus’ good news, to practice generosity, forgiveness and hospitality. It was about
being drawn away from greed, fear, anxiety, even brutality.
Lent set aside some time for us to try to “get it right”, to return to the one who gave us
life, who sustains us for all time. It was a time wherein we looked to God, the one who
holds all circumstances, all possibilities. Lent is about gazing upon God knowing that
God has the capacity to do “well-being” in a world that is struggling. And knowing that
we are part of the plan. Prayer, fasting and almsgiving were the tools that we employed
to deepen relationships, to make connections.
Ah…and then there’s this: Jesus washes feet. He has set the example, an example that
was a sharp alternative to all the available models around him. In his great act of
humility, he broke with all the models of humanity that are visible in our own time and
place: the rat race of productivity, the fear of our own survival, the frenzy of
accumulation, and the deathly sense of self-sufficiency. And not quite finished, he gives
us a new commandment! “Love one another. Do you understand?”
It says to me that our journey through life means that we always travel with towel and
basin, ever ready to change our minds, renew our minds, alter our opinions of
ourselves, our neighbors and the world. Then, and only then, comes freedom!
FelicianSisters