We have made it to Holy Week; tomorrow is Holy Thursday, the first day of the Triduum. Through much of the year, I rejoice in the resurrection, the light of God’s love winning out. But, today, and throughout the Triduum, I think it’s important to spend time with a Jesus who is sorrowed, betrayed, suffering. The Jesus who understands our own experiences of this because he experienced it too.

Jesus is gathered at table with his closest companions to remember Passover, an important day in his religious tradition. In many ways, the Passover meal is a feast. I can think of the ways I gather around the table with my friends and family at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and birthdays. How wonderful it is to eat good food with loved ones, sharing stories, celebrating the occasion before us. This is what Jesus was doing with his closest friends and family. This is the setting where it becomes evident that one of these closest people was going to betray him.

I can only imagine how Jesus felt – alone, sad, hurt. One of his closest friends had betrayed him, turned him in to authorities. Sitting there with Jesus, in these feelings is painful. To watch someone I care so much about in his own suffering is hard to bare. Yet, we all know, there is nothing I can do now but to be here with him in it, just as he is with us in ours.

Let us pray.

Jesus, our sacred companion, in your full humanness, you know of what it feels like - the suffering, pain, sadness, loneliness. In your full divinity, you know that this is not the end of the story, that light and love win. Today, you ask us to be with you in your suffering, to journey alongside you to your death. We cannot alleviate it, we cannot remove it. We ask for the strength to be with you, to imagine your suffering, to know that you know pain. Amen.