Tuesday of Holy Week
Isa 49:1-6
Jn 13:21-33,36-38
…my reward with my God. I was honoured in the eyes of the Lord…
Relationships are always more difficult during Lent, most especially with members of one’s family. Maybe it is the proximity that breeds contempt, and foments disrespect. Those in our closest circle, are often the most entitled, and capable of inflicting the worst of wounds. It’s a universal truth that you can’t choose your family. Family is what you are born to, what you marry into. You are stuck with them, for better or for worse. You have no say in the threshold of competence. It is what it is.
A wise and devout Catholic once made this observation to me, that “things are always hardest the closer we get to Easter”. We are tired, and more susceptible to injurious remarks. Our patience has worn thin. Our prayer lives lack the enthusiasm of the First Week of Lent. So when the people closest to us reveal themselves to be feckless ingrates despite all the time and care we have poured into them, that disappointment stings worse than in Ordinary Time, Advent or Christmastide. You give people the benefit of the doubt, but they reward you with spectacular rudeness. I don’t expect relationships to be reciprocal, but I do hope for mutual respect. Who is the mug then? Me? Them? Me, methinks.
Jesus was betrayed by a member of his inner circle, and as he was marched off to Calvary, denied by those closest to him. As I fester over a family member’s rude remarks and an episode of hurtful passive aggression, our Lord had to deal with being sold out by the people he poured the most into, his disciples. If I am spitting blood, imagine his disappointment, his hurt.
Reading today’s Gospel, I feel a new sense of empathy for our Christ. I hear the resignation in his voice. “What you are going to do, do quickly”. Get it over with, you loser, you worthless wastrel. And seen through his eyes, my own troubles seem so… small. If our Lord can get over being let down by those closest to him, can accept that losers cannot help but let you down, then why not me? Maybe this is the clarity of the Cross. People suck, but you have to be ok with it. People will disappoint you; you will pour time and effort into building a relationship, but they will spit it back at you, and reward you with rudeness, ingratitude and disrespect. They will make it about them. They will lack accountability. They will turn it around and say it is your fault. But you have to be ok with it, not just at Lent, but all the seasons of the calendar, especially if they’re part of your family. And though your bruised heart seeks vengeance, you have to yield and say, “I was honoured in the eyes of the Lord”. Christ modelled it, Christ endured it, Christ laid it all out on the Cross. So now, I too, have to find some way to lay this hurt down, and move on.
(Today’s OXYGEN by Sharon Soo)
Prayer: Lord, I pray for the fortitude to endure the losers around me. May You deal with them as you see fit, and give me the peace to lay my angry heart down and move on.
Thanksgiving: I give thanks for the Holy Spirit, who helps me to restrain myself from lashing out in anger. And I give thanks to the people in my life, who talk me down from the ledge, who love me, support me, and are inexhaustible in their patience with me.
OXYGEN 
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