THE STRONGHOLD OF TRUST IN GOD


WEDNESDAY OF HOLY WEEK

Isa 50:4-9; Ps 69:8-10,21-22,31,33-34; Mt 26:14-25

The Son of Man’s Confidence in the Father

Saint Alphonsus de Ligouri describes prayer as the greatest means of human salvation. According to him, God gave different animals different means of escape from danger and their predators, but he gave humans prayer as the means of our escape from our enemies. Since we have conceived prayer as the operation or activity that emanates from the gift of faith, prayer is also a spiritual gift from God. Thus, we see that prayer characterised the life of the Son of Man. We identified two love attractions in the Son of Man in our reflection yesterday: the love of God the Father and the love for his brothers. While these love attractions are not in conflict, tension sometimes arises between the two, as we have described in the previous reflection. Nonetheless, the love of God and confidence in his providential care was the mainstay of the life of the Son of Man in the flesh. The confidence in the Father was his anchor through his paschal mysteries. The prophecy of Isaiah expresses this. “For my part, I made no resistance, neither did I turn away. 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.” The faith of the Son of Man in God strengthened him to go through his passion without faltering. Without faith, it is impossible to walk the path of the mysteries.

The faith of the Messiah and the fact that his path is laid out for him by the Father reassured him of the presence of the Father with him. “The Lord comes to my help so that I am untouched by the insults. So, too, I set my face like flint; I know I shall not be ashamed.” Like the Son of Man, we overcome the disappointment we meet in relaying or representing the love of the Father to our brothers and sisters by prayerful recourses to God, who inspires our mission to them. The Psalmist acknowledges enduring the miseries of the paschal mysteries for the faith and love of God. “It is for you that I suffer taunts, that shame covers my face, that I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my own mother’s sons. I burn with zeal for your house and taunts against you fall on me.” In other words, faith perfected in love made the Son of Man bear beatings and insults for God. The sacrificing love we speak about is from no other means than constant communion with the Father in prayer. To bear insults for Jesus Christ, we must grow our love for him in silent meditation and contemplation of his love for us. The Son of Man gives us examples of self-sacrificing love for the Father in his paschal mysteries. Because love unites the lover and the beloved, the passion of the Son of Man demonstrates the love the Father has for him and us.

The Father showed his love and presence through his passion and death by upholding and raising him from the grave for us. The love between the Son of Man and the Father is also present between him and us. Jesus assured us of his love when he avowed loving us with the same love the Father has for him. Jesus calls us to enter this love as he entered the Father’s love through prayer and constant communion. The lack of this prayerful communion with the Saviour costs Judas Iscariot his salvation. Saint John informed us in his gospel that he used to be more preoccupied with monetary than spiritual resources as an apostle of the Lamb. Saint Matthew confirms this in the gospel passage. “One of the Twelve, the man called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, ‘What are you prepared to give me if I hand him over to you? They paid him thirty silver pieces, and from that moment he looked for an opportunity to betray him.” Judas betrayed the Son of Man by not loving him more than the money he wanted to acquire at all costs. We can imagine the sorrow this caused the heart of Jesus, who loved him to the point of dying for him. “And while they were eating he said ‘I tell you solemnly, one of you is about to betray me.’” Jesus was with them at the table, while Judas was not with him. The condemnation is that he received love without giving back. “The Son of Man is going to his fate, as the scriptures say he will, but alas for that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed!”

Let us pray: O God, who willed your Son to submit for our sake to the yoke of the Cross, so that you might drive from us the power of the enemy, grant us, your servants, to attain the grace of the resurrection. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. 

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