Preparing for the Magnitude of Holy Week

Sunday April 3, 2022

Dear Friends,

                 Stand at the edge of the scene. The woman’s accusers made her stand there- in front of everyone. A non- person. A thing used to trap Jesus. A woman ostensibly caught in the act of adultery. She stands before Jesus alone. No man is presented with her. Only this woman awaiting the condemnation of Jesus that would lead to her death.

                The stones were being gathered, but Jesus had no use for stones or the cleverness of the learned who knew how to manipulate the law.

                Tracing his finger in the sand, Jesus gave everyone time to cool dawn, to rethink their part in this drama. Then he straightened up. Authority fell like a mantle, softly on his shoulders and enfolded this misused woman.

                “Has no one condemned you?” (John 8.10) “No one,” she answered. (John 8 .11) Don’t you wonder what was in her voice. Surprise?” No one, sir.” Wonder? “No one, sir.” Gratitude? “No one, sir.” “Go ,” he told her, “Avoid this sin.”(John 8.11)

                From this day forward, the woman would carry the strength and weakness of the past with her.

                “It is not that I have reached the goal,” Paul says in the letter to the Philippians today. “It is not that I have finished my course, but I am racing to reach it.”

                There is more ahead. More for Paul and the so- called adulterous woman. More for Jesus and more for us. Next week, we plunge into the Passion. This week and last, our readings have been preparing us to open ourselves to the magnitude of Holy Week. The Prodigal Father, the Adulterous Woman, the Passion of Christ all set before us an agenda:

                Will hurting, wrong, wronged people find in our believing community the acceptance that enables them to continue life’s journey or will we turn away the accused and condemned as beyond hope, comfort, love or salvation?

                Hurting, wrong or wronged people. We know them. The man who made an error in judgement and we call it malicious, the woman who had an abortion, the legislator who chose gain rather than justice, our brother who left home in anger twenty years ago, the person who choses self-serving ways instead of a generous use of one’s talents for others.

                Will we accept these people and others like them? When they ask us “has no one condemned us?”, will we answer “No one!”  Will we accept ourselves as being like them? And go on?

                Because God does accept us and bids us go on. That’s today’s message framed in the words of Isaiah: “Remember not the events of the past – the things of long ago, consider not.

                See, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth!
                                       Do you not perceive it? “

                The newness that Jesus offered in woman in todays Gospel is a presage of Easter. When all things will be transformed – will be made new. Come! Let’s go on together.

~Sister Joan Sobala