Lenten Reflection

Lenten Reflection, Wednesday, March 27, 2013- Paul M. Beaudin, PhD

 

Each Lent, it seems, I am asked to reflect upon a passage of scripture that in some way references having a beard plucked out…this year the passage includes the added imagery of buffets and spitting.  As a former urban school principal, Isaiah’s imagery conjures up my recollections of breaking up playground skirmishes on the asphalt in East Harlem.   But my personal recollections of that time are not why we break open the scripture today as a worshipping body during this Holy Week 2013. 

 

I would, rather, call our attention to two verses of this 26^th chapter of Matthew’s gospel.  In verse 18 the evangelist captures the words of Jesus as the apostles begin to prepare for Passover:  “My appointed time draws near…”  Subsequently, in verse 25 he references Judas’ response to the prediction of betrayal:   “Surely it is not I, Rabbi?”

 

It seems to me that these two verses capture much of the essence of Lent, Holy Week, and Easter…. and of our lives here at Iona…. and in our relationships with others and our world. 

 

Our lives are dictated by appointed times...a time to be born, a time to take attendance, a time to pay the credit card bill, a time for one’s dentist, a time to get to the Murphy lot in order to find a parking space, a time to post grades, and, ultimately, a time to die. 

 

For many of us, as well, the times of our lives are spent avoiding trouble, or trying to get out of it when we perceive we are caught in the muck and mire, or trying to deny responsibility by fibbing, or stretching the truth, or downright lying when we get caught, as my mother would say, with one’s hand in the cookie jar.  We paraphrase Judas at such junctures, turn our head ever so slightly, and with downcast eyes, respond, Surely it is not I?   

 

But Holy Week reminds us that the appointed time is really about something greater.  It is about a time to be courageous, a time to free ourselves from those fears which cause us to betray or deny the truth about that which is right, good, and holy.   Christ’s appointed time was his appointment with betrayal…and spitting… and buffeting…. and crucifixion… and death.  Not an appointment any of us would want to keep.  His amazing act of courage for the benefit of mankind models for each of us that our time is best spent, well spent.  By that I mean spending time raising our hearts, hands, and voices to the service of the gospel.

 

The recent selection of our Holy Father Francis I, has stirred so much

conversation in the media on Catholic social teaching and our corporate

Catholic response to the plight of the poor.  This is indeed the appointed

time to consider our role in addressing it in a personal and systemic way.  It

is not the appointed time to shrink away from the struggle for economic

justice and respond with Surely it is not I?  because we fear in some way

that the care of others would, perhaps, diminish our own wealth.  The care

of the poor is not the job of those students and campus ministers who go on

mission trips or of Brother Devlin who brings food and clothing to the

homeless or of those who work in the New Rochelle Soup Kitchen.  Now is

the appointed time for all of us.  The time to matter, a time to move the

world.

 As our new Holy Father stood on the balcony in St. Peter’s, he lowered his head and asked for the prayers of the gathered throng.  During the Last Supper, the First Eucharist, Christ knelt before his disciples and washed their feet.  These two acts, acts which overturn traditional relationships of people and power, remind us, too, that it is the appointed time to invert the pyramid of power.   It is the appointed time to, as Beatrice Bruteau suggests, to continue the Holy Thursday revolution, a movement of in which our power, leadership have nothing to do with feeding ego, but everything to do with feeding, clothing, and serving the poor.    So, today, the day before we reenact Christ’s act of humility and service, let us remember that this is, indeed, our appointed time here at Iona, in our local community, and in the lives of the poor.  For surely, Judas was wrong….for Surely it is I.