March 31, 2021 – Wednesday of Holy Week
Each morning the Father opened Jesus’ ear to listen like a disciple
a radical listening in which Jesus’ was willing to be shaken to his roots, with nowhere to lay his head
This radical listening flowed over into a willingness to suffer, to be struck, beaten and spit upon without retaliating
Trained by the Lord “opening his ear” each morning he could listen through his own fear and resistance and accept Judas’ betrayal
and his own torture and death on the cross
Not passively accept them as the failure of his mission on earth but find in them the opportunity to perform the culminating prophetic sign that would cap and complete his work on earth
Radical listening brought Jesus to boundless confidence that allowed him to overcome his terror and leap into the abyss…
“The Lord God is my help, who can prove me wrong?”
With his life, in his paschal mystery, he was able to speak a word with singular power to rouse the weary
a word born of compassionate suffering and boundless confidence
Jesus became the word of the cross, a word that convicts, energizes and encourages unlike any other
All of us are weary—we are weary of Lent perhaps and winter; weary of our own persistent weakness and sin; weary of covid, scandal and unrest; weary of appalling injustice and inequality…
As we enter these holy days, may the Lord open the ear of our heart that we may listen like disciples, in complete surrender, willing to be struck and wounded by the word…
…that by his holy and glorious wounds the Lord may heal us and raise us up
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