Wednesday of Holy Week
Readings: Isaiah 50:4-9; Matthew 26:14-25
31 March
“When it was evening, he took his place with the twelve; and while they were eating, he said, ‘Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.’ And they became greatly distressed and began to say to him one after another, ‘Surely not I, Lord?’” (Matthew 26:20-22)
Reflection
Yesterday we contemplated John’s depiction of this fateful evening; today, we read Matthew’s.
We are a long way from the electric moment at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry (Matthew 3:13-17). There, Jesus stood with the man who baptised him and who knew who he was; the Father spoke, and the Holy Spirit descended. In today’s scene, Jesus sits with his friends, but they have no comprehension of what is going on. Jesus is, to all intents and purposes, alone. John the Baptist is long since dead, and the Father and Holy Spirit remain silent.
It will not be until it is all over that the Trinity will explicitly manifest itself again. The Son will cry out to the Father and, in death, pour out the Spirit. However, there is a lot to happen before that moment. God’s plan for our salvation will need to come to completion.
God’s plan has been ever-present down through all the ages of humanity. From the moment when God sent our first ancestors on the quest to learn to find him (Genesis 3:23), God has been calling us back to himself. There have been moments throughout that history where it has seemed as if all had been lost. Yet, God’s plan is as relentless as a drumbeat. Nothing can stifle it: not our failures, not our sin, not suffering and not death.
It is the truth we contemplate over these days.
Reflection by Shane Dwyer.
Reproduced with permission from Evangelisation Brisbane, an agency of the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane, who have kindly supplied these daily Lenten 2021 reflections from their publication Look to Jesus: 52 Daily Reflections for Lent and Easter.
