Reflections on Holy Week: Mercy Behind the Scenes

Today the Church celebrates the Second Sunday of Easter and Divine Mercy Sunday, a feast instituted by Pope John Paul II based on a devotion that was started by St. Faustina Kowalska, a Polish nun and early 20th-century mystic. The image associated with this feast depicts Jesus with the message, “Jesus, I trust in you.” I would like to take this opportunity to share a few of the living images of God’s mercy that I encountered during the past week.

Holy Thursday

Beatriz Garcia Ramirez proclaimed the second reading in Spanish at the liturgy on Holy Thursday. In that reading, 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, Paul retells the story of the Last Supper to the people of Corinth. Beatriz struggled with the nuances of the text. She wanted to get it right. She practiced a lot but mostly she prayed and then let go. After Mass a parishioner who did not speak Spanish went to Beatriz and thanked her. She said that though she didn’t understand the language, she grasped the message of the reading by the way it was proclaimed. God spoke through Beatriz despite her struggles. God’s mercy is bigger than our efforts.

Good Friday

On Good Friday during the Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion, Deacon Tom McGivney chanted the prayers of intercession. He had rehearsed for days. The first prayer was perfectly chanted and he felt confident about the next nine. But these prayers have two parts, the second of which is chanted by the presider. When that second part was chanted by the presider, Tom was thrown off key and he couldn’t find his way back. Frustrated with himself, he had to choose to either continue his frustration or let go. He let go and decided to chant the rest of the prayers on one single pitch. After the liturgy, he expressed his disappointment to me. He wanted to get it right. The next morning he was greeted by a candidate for Reception into Full Communion who was present at the liturgy the night before. She told him that she was so profoundly moved by the way he chanted those intercessions that she felt his voice reverberating in her heart during those prayers. God spoke through Tom despite his self-doubt. God’s mercy is bigger than our imperfections.

Holy Saturday

Holy Saturday is the day we decorate the church for Easter. For weeks we looked for the perfect wreath to hang outside the church doors. We visited craft shops, floral stores, wholesalers, and searched online for wreaths that would both harmonize with the environment and last the full fifty days of Easter. We wanted to get it right. We finally found some wreaths but our real find came on the morning of Holy Saturday. Among the decorators hanging the wreaths was a blind boy from Colombia named Christian. To Christian, it didn’t matter what the wreaths looked like. What mattered was that he contributed to the beauty of Easter, though he himself will never be able to see that beauty. God spoke to us through Christian. God’s mercy is bigger than our agenda.

As these three images portray, we encounter God’s mercy not by getting it right, but by getting ourselves out of the way and allowing God to get it right. “Jesus, I trust in you,” is our motto not just for this Sunday, but for every day of the year.