The Catholic Calendar for Monday, March 21, 2005
Monday of Holy Week

Scripture from today's Liturgy of the Word:
Isaiah 42:1-7
Psalm 27:1-3,13-14
John 12:1-11

A reflection on today's Sacred Scripture:

The tone of today's Holy Scripture readings portend both the growing conspiracy to crucify Jesus and the joy of Christ's final victory over sin and death. It always seems as though one cannot speak of victory without death, nor in the case of Jesus, death without victory.

It must be so with us who are to be His sincere followers, we must be willing to put to death those things that interfere with us loving God wholeheartedly, if we hope to share in the victory of Easter.

Here, only days away from the sacred celebration of our salvation we may wonder how we can satisfactorily do that. There is so little time left and so much to atone for. So little time to make up for the days we have failed to sacrifice. So little time to demonstrate that we take seriously the call to repentance and conversion.

If we didn't examine carefully the words of Scripture we might have missed the point that Jesus came to give us hope so that we might not despair over our weakness, but instead take refuge in Him and have Easter joy.

Let us do it, then! Let us take refuge in Christ truly present in the Sacraments of His Church, and seek forgiveness in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Time is short, but do not despair because of wasted opportunities, but instead give thanks to God for this day for forgiveness.

- Donna Raye Nelson, OCDS
(drn3rd at hotmail dot com)

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