Daily Reflection for Wednesday March 31, 2021
Peace and Blessings, Friends and Parishioners,
Wednesday of Holy Week
We encourage you to reflect on Wednesday’s readings at this link:
http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/033121.cfm
If you prefer to use your own Bible, the readings are:
First Reading: Isaiah 50: 4-9a
Responsorial: Psalm 69: 8-10, 21-22, 31 and 33-34
Gospel: Matthew 26: 14-25
Our reflection on Wednesday’s readings:
I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who tore out my beard; My face I did not hide from insults and spitting. Isaiah 50: 6
Matthew 20 tells us that Jesus knew his trip to Jerusalem would lead to suffering and his death. He knew he would be mocked, scourged, spat upon, and crucified. Jesus had been tested and was prepared for the suffering he would nonviolently endure. This week for him would be the culmination of his ministry to bring glad tidings to the poor…proclaim liberty to captivesand recovery of sight to the blind…let the oppressed go free. (Luke 4: 18-19).
As I write this reflection, I am reading His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope, about the life of the late John Lewis by Jon Meacham. When the great civil rights leader and long-time Member of Congress, John Lewis, died last year, we were reminded of the scenes from Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965. Police attacked peaceful demonstrators with horses, billy clubs, and tear gas as they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.
John Lewis was beaten and bloodied that day and thought he might die. But it wasn’t the first time he had been beaten, spat upon, had his head split open, and his life threatened. And it wouldn’t be the last time. Lewis, a devout follower of Jesus, had committed his life to nonviolence, peace, and agape love.
He had been tested and was prepared. He had learned from the lives of Jesus, Gandhi, and the teachings of Howard Thurman, Reinhold Niebuhr, James Lawson, Ella Baker, and the inspiration of Martin Luther King, Jr., and others.
Lewis was prepared for the beatings and suffering that he endured.
Jesus also was prepared. He had been tested. What he was going to endure was horrific, painful, gory. Hard to believe what human beings can do to other human beings. But Jesus nonviolently endured. And the Prince of Peace, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, showed us that His Truth is Marching On.
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Peace and blessings,
Al Mytty