The Generosity of Holy Week

Dear Friends,

This week, from Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion to the Easter Vigil next Saturday evening, is, without doubt, a week of profound generosity or lack of it.

Above all, Jesus, Word of God made flesh, gives Himself for the life of the world – its salvation and fulfillment. Jesus gives His all. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Satan hovers in the background once more and Satan doesn’t stand a chance. He is gone and Jesus places himself, without distraction, into the arms of His Father. “Yes!” he echoes the words of his mother, Mary. “Yes. I will.” Jesus gives himself over to these next hours with exceptional generosity. He withholds nothing.

All along the way to the cross, He meets people who are challenged to be generous as He is generous. Simon of Cyrene felt the flat of the soldier’s sword on his shoulder. Everyone under Roman rule knew that gesture meant that the person under the blade was to serve in some way. Simon did as he was told. But the demand on him grew into a generosity that made him act lovingly and wholeheartedly in carrying Jesus’ cross. Simon’s sons were later named as remarkable members of the early Church (Mark 15.21). They could only get that love, that fire, through following their own father’s generosity. Dismas, the good thief hanging to one side of Jesus, is generous with his words to Jesus. They are like balm for his wounds. Generosity does this. It makes tenderness blossom where there has been no awareness or caring. The other thief has not a generous bone in his body. His words are harsh. I wonder if anyone had ever been generous to him.

After his denial of Jesus three times, Peter wept. He did what he did not ever believe he would do. Yet, Jesus was generous to Peter in return. Never rejected by Jesus, Peter’s holiness was watered by his tears, generously flowing to wash him clean. It could also have been so with Judas. Whatever motivated Judas to betray Jesus, it could have been overcome. Judas needed to be generous in accepting Jesus’ forgiveness in the aftermath of his betrayal, but he couldn’t.

Mary, Jesus’ mother, stood beneath the cross. She may well have wondered if she had anything left to give. But her Son found something both surprising and hope-filled. With the generosity of a God-Son, Jesus gave Mary and John to each other to love and support in the years ahead. Now Jesus had given almost all away. He had only a few words left and he flung them out into the universe. “It is finished,” Jesus cried out (John 19.30). He shared his victory in that moment with all of us.

After Jesus’ death, Joseph of Arimathea stepped out of the shadows. He had been a secret believer in Jesus, but he had judged that too much was at stake for him to speak up sooner. Now he had the courage to be generous with his presence before the Romans, generous with his own tomb. He claimed the body of Jesus and took it for burial (Luke 23.50-53). The women bought costly spices and oils to prepare Jesus’ body for entombment. From what possible sources had they found money to spend so generously so that Jesus might be ready to enter the beyond?

For Jesus, it is finished. For us, not yet. What will we be and do this Holy Week? Will we be generous with our time to be with Jesus in prayer? Will we carry the cross of others? Wipe their faces? Say tender words to them? Weep with them? Wonder with them?

~Sister Joan Sobala