This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.
The world crumbles in chaos. It is World War II, and whole towns are ravaged by bomb and mortar; nations succumb to conquest and tyranny. Bodies of countless young men in the very prime of their lives are ripped asunder by machine gun fire.
Elsewhere, after World War II, innumerable religious and political exiles, who have done nothing wrong besides hold to their convictions, freeze to death in Siberian work camps.
What are the signs of evil and chaos in your time?
Whatever they are, however great and broad, they are inferior in magnitude to the betrayal of God Himself to torture, for the price of thirty pieces of silver. For what the good thief said of Jesus, all of us who suffer on this planet may well repeat: “And indeed, we have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done nothing criminal.” This man, who is God Himself.
And so, if in smaller catastrophes, even though we believe in God’s Providence, we feel helpless against the overwhelming power of destructive chaos, how are we to blame the apostles for feeling that the Jesus they loved had lost control of the situation?
And yet, in control this sovereign Lord was. So serenely was He in control, even in His greatest agony, that the clues may slip by us, as they did the apostles.
But today’s gospel is full of those clues. Jesus obtains the designated room for the Passover with a mere word. He predicts His betrayal. His restraint in the face of the knowledge of His betrayer bespeaks His will to allow it, and more broadly, His sovereignty over the situation.
And more broadly still, the first reading eloquently shows that this drama was planned from all time, and foretold.
What are the signs of evil and chaos in your time? In your life? Having seen Christ’s sovereignty through His Passion, death, and Resurrection, do you still not see that He has your life and history itself in hand?
Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Consider the travesty that was the torturous execution of God, and then consider the clues that Jesus was the Master of that moment: His predictions at each step, His “I am He” causing the soldiers to faint in the Garden of Gethsemane, His mitigation of Pilate’s blame and stubborn refusal to defend Himself even at the hour of His condemnation, etc. Then, consider the frightening and anxiety-causing elements of your own life. Ask Him, dare to ask Him, if He has those in hand as He did His own hour. And tell Him that you trust Him.
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