Wednesday of Holy Week
Isaiah 50:4-9 | Psalm 68(69):8-10,21-22,31,33-34 | Matthew 26:14-25
I offered my back to those who struck me,
my cheeks to those who tore at my beard;
I did not cover my face
against insult and spittle. (Isaiah 50:6)
Something bizarre happened to me yesterday, while I was on the way to my neighborhood train station.
I was traversing a narrow walkway, and spied two adults coming towards me, walking side by side. I decided to keep to the right, practically hugging the wall next to me.
The two individuals kept walking towards me, still walking abreast with no room on either side. They’re looking right at me, I thought. Surely the one in front of me will soon move to one side and let me through.
Instead, we both stopped barely arm’s-length apart, and she glared at me, seemingly insulted that this miserable excuse of a living being (a.k.a. me) wouldn’t smear myself into a thin layer against the wall, or vanish into thin air, so as to let her continue unimpeded.
Her companion, being more civil, pulled her to one side, and we all continued on our way.
Seconds later, it happened again. This time, it was (I assume) a mother and her towering son, and yes, the larger-than-me child seemed ready to beat me to a pulp for not giving way, even when there was literally no space for me to slide on by. The mother glared at me too, pointedly ignoring the physical impossibility of the situation, furious at this stranger who dared to disrespect her son by not doing the impossible for him.
✞ ✞ ✞ ✞ ✞
Yesterday, I experienced anew what it feels like to be a worm, unloved and irrelevant, a mere nuisance to be stepped on and ignored thereafter.
To my chagrin, I also experienced a surge of anger, my fists briefly clenching, seconds from throwing a gut-punch, followed closely by an uppercut to the chin. The crick in my neck from a rough night’s sleep didn’t help my disposition either.
Did I mention that I was quietly praying my daily rosary while all the above occurred? I must have recited at least fifteen Hail Marys during that twice-interrupted decade, when my thumb kept slipping on my rosary ring in my mental turmoil.
Now that I think about it, “chagrin” barely scratches the surface of what I’m still feeling as I write this. It brings me no joy to experience at least some of Isaiah’s predicament, nor to fight off the daily impulse to retaliate against those…
who expect me to kowtow to their unstated wishes,
who speak uncivil words to me, then blithely excuse themselves with “that’s the kind of person I am, can’t be helped, and why do you take things so seriously?”
who casually toss BIG problems “over the fence” to me, in the expectation that “Adrian’ll fix it” because they don’t want to deal with it.
But perhaps this was a wakeup call for me, reminding me to not bury myself in, well, me.
And then I remember Jesus’ instructions to his disciples regarding their passover preparations, particularly how Matthew begins his record with:
Go to so-and-so in the city (Matthew 26:18)
I think that’s a message to us all, when even the owner of the house in which the Last Supper took place is left unidentified.
All that matters in the end,
is that what needed doing
was performed to completion.
Just like Jesus in His Passion.
Lord Jesus Christ, You bore our sufferings and carried our sorrows through Your glorious Passion. Help us meet our own passion with the determination to do the needful, and the spiritual grace to bring Your boundless mercy to all.
May Your love be upon us, O Lord, as we place all our hope in you during this Holy Week, and till the end of our days. Amen.