We invite you to pause and ponder on Holy Week with Mary tonight. Day by day we have been hearing reports of the suffering endured by the women of Ukraine and their children. Throughout history, the innocent Jesus continues to suffer with the victims of violence of every kind. Let us ponder the words of Jesus in the Passion Story: “Weep for yourselves and for your children.” Blessings
On Palm Sunday this year, we have read the Passion Story from Luke’s Gospel.
One detail unique to Luke’s Gospel is the little scene with the women who lamented for Jesus on his way to Calvary. This scene is familiar to many of us as the Eighth Station on the Way of the Cross: The Women of Jerusalem Weep for Jesus.
Jesus acknowledges their concern, but his response is: “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me but for yourselves and for your children.” In the generation that followed the time of Jesus, the city of Jerusalem suffered a harrowing siege and after almost two years it was utterly destroyed by the Roman armies in 70AD. Some of these women and their children would surely have been among the victims of that terrible war.
Day by day over the course of this Lent we have heard reports of the suffering endured by the women of Ukraine and their children. But we still cannot really imagine the reality of what they have had to endure. Throughout history, the innocent Jesus continues to suffer with the victims of violence of every kind.
May God give us the grace of deep compassion, and move us to a practical solidarity with those who are suffering in the present conflict. May the outstretched arms of Jesus draw them to himself.
We pause and ponder the words of Jesus: “Weep for yourselves and for your children.”