Lenten Reflections

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By Abbot Matthew Leavy, O.S.B.

I believe it happened somewhere outside of Omaha, but I forget the exact place. The cause of the fire was a malfunctioning water heater in the basement. First the smoke and then the flames devoured the house. It was about over when Bill screeched into the yard. He had been working the night shift only a short distance away when the police called to tell him that there had been a fire at his home.

As he bounded from his truck, the fire chief was right there to assure him that his wife had been rescued but was unconscious and that his two little girls were doing fine. “But”, he added “I’m afraid the house is a total loss, as you can see it’s still burning in parts.” Utter panic ensued as Bill stuttered out “But what about my boy?” “There’s another child?” the captain began to ask…But it was too late, Bill’s utter panic turned into utter rage as he bounded into the building, not even hearing the shouts of police and firefighters warning him to stop. Minutes later Bill emerged from the front door himself enveloped in flames, carrying what looked like a sack of potatoes in his arms. The firefighters took the bag from his burnt hands and opened it to find the boy, alive and coughing from the smoke, but untouched by flames. Bill had remembered that the boy went to sleep in the basement zippered up in a new sleeping bag.

Bill, however, was badly injured from both smoke and flame. It was a long recovery in the burn unit. Skin graft and surgeries, infections and intense pain – never once did he complain. In fact, he claimed that he was never so happy, never so fortunate in his whole life. A man of few words, his brief sentence of explanation was simply: “I love my son and I saved him. The rest doesn’t matter, I love my son and I saved him.”

It was love, self-sacrificing love, outrageous love, that impelled Bill to save his son, so much so that the pain paled in significance.

At today’s liturgy we hear another rescue story filled with the pain of unjust torture and death but also with the outrageous love that Jesus has for us who have been redeemed, rescued, and saved.

It is true that suffering is the prominent feature of the Passion story. However, we must state at the outset that the more profound feature of the story is love. Love is why Jesus freely underwent the Passion. Love is why Bill performed that outrageously dangerous rescue feat. The suffering was a consequence of his loving. As we know there are many kinds of suffering, but only the suffering borne of love is redemptive.

Because Jesus’ suffering came from his unselfish loving, and because we have been rescued, it follows that we, his disciples, are called to do the same. For us then to follow the suffering Christ, to accompany him to Jerusalem is to feel the pain that inevitably accompanies the kind of love that freely sacrifices for the sake of others.

Good parents do this for their children in innumerable ways both small and great. Similarly, grateful children love and sacrifice for their parents, their elders, (someday) even when it means giving up their own will, pleasures, or convenience. Good teachers sacrifice for their students and vice-versa.

Each of us, not matter who we are, is called to this way of Christ’s loving and suffering, even when it is not yet noticed or appreciated. Often we hear someone complain, “My life is no longer my own.” But for us who are followers of Christ – isn’t that the very point and goal – the destiny and joy of our life not to be “my own” but Christ’s?

As we accompany him today with palms and later this week at the Last Supper, on Calvary, and in the tomb, let us see in the pattern of his paschal mystery the pattern of our own lives. Let us beg the assistance of his grace that we may imitate his self-sacrificing love that we may also share the immense joy of his holy resurrection.