Cruelty

I find myself in the middle of the Holy Triduum.  I have always found the morning of Holy Saturday to be the most terrifying of mornings because symbolically I am completely without God as are all true Christians throughout the world.  Our Savior actually died yesterday on Good Friday, and we all stopped to watch His death.  In the wee small hours of Saturday morning, Satan can infilitrate my dream, my heart and my soul, whispering “Where is your God now?”

Satan was not as direct this year.  Instead, he slowly separated me from my heavenly Father to the point that I lost the ability to recognize myself, and I forgot who I was, a daughter of God.  This act was crueler than anything he could have done early on the morning of Holy Saturday.  His attack began back in November when I stopped attending Mass.  In all honesty, I couldn’t get to church because my ailments did not allow me to sit, stand, or walk for more than two minutes at a time, which made it impossible to even get to a church, let alone participate in a service.  Still, deep in my heart I knew I could have tried harder.  As time went by, I continued to heal; I gained the necessary strength to return to church, but I didn’t because I simply didn’t want to.  My body was physically worn out, and for some reason, every time I entered a church, I felt more exhausted and uncomfortable.  By the time Lent arrived, I knew I had to take drastic measures to get back to church.  Rather than give up something, I vowed to attend Mass every Sunday.  Through the kindness of Jesus, I was able to fulfill this commitment.  Unfortunately, the meaning of the words and the revitalization Mass usually brings were not sinking in and I continued to lack the richness of a God-fearing life.

Now, in the midst of the Triduum, I understand what a sinful creature I am.  A well-known priest spoke about the significance of the crown of thorns during the Passion of Jesus.  He made the point that all the scourging administered to Jesus made sense–it was a typical punishment for prisoners before execution, but a crown of thorns was not.  This was forced on Jesus by the sheer cruelty of the Roman soldiers and Jesus had to endure it because of the cruelty we have done and still do to each other and therefore to Him.  Back at the beginning of the book of Genesis, Satan caused us to sin, and this sin has made us become cruel and envious creatures.  I would like to be able to consider those Roman soldiers and say I could never do what they did to Jesus, but I can’t.  We all have the ability to be that cruel.  I was just a few weeks ago; I had gone through one of my worst weeks of work.  I was subject to extreme cruelty when a customer called me every bad name imaginable, and at the end of the conversation she told me to “go and eat crow” before abruptly hanging up.

I should have gone to Jesus; I should have asked Him to help me handle it but I didn’t.  My sinful nature crept out and I took my anger out on my mother!  Instead of turning the other cheek, I turned to my mother and released the venom festering inside since the beginning of November and probably even before that.  Somewhere along the way I decided to stop listening to God and chose to fall back on the lies of Satan.  They are pretty easy to fall into!

So, here I am once again, awaiting the rising of Jesus Christ from the dead, like Peter waiting to ask His forgiveness and to take me back. We can hear the story of Christ’s Passion over and over and it will always hold significance. However, when you hear the words and place yourself in the story, you see yourself as a person hurting and killing Jesus and the meaning of Easter suddenly becomes so much stronger and more important, especially since it involves the survival of our immortal souls.