April 5, 2012: Holy Thursday
A few days ago, I
was sitting in a room that appeared to be a doctor’s examination room. It had
an examination table along with the typical tools that a doctor would use. I
sat on the doctor’s stool, waiting. The first ‘patient’ came in and he sat a
few inches from me. He had a muscular build and it looked as though he weighed
nearly 300 pounds. Just minutes into our conversation he broke down and cried,
all the while we were both annoyed with the flies that were all about us. When
we were through, I handed him a piece of paper and he left. Then another large
man came in and I observed that every inch of his forearms were tattooed with
different sorts of skull designs. The flies annoyed us as well. I told this
man, “You know the evil one is like these flies. They don’t weigh much, and
they really don’t have much power at all, but like these flies, the evil one
knows how to distract us and how to push our buttons.” When we finished, I also
handed him a piece of paper and he left. The cycle of men entering and leaving
continued for more than an hour. As I came out of the doctor’s room and looked
down the hallway, I noticed that at least one of the guys was trying to read
the piece of paper that I had given him. No, it was not a prescription, but a
note containing a conversation between Jesus and a sinful soul as written down
by St. Faustina Kowalska, a saint who spread the message of Divine Mercy to the
world.
I asked each of the
guys at the prison who came in for confession to read the note as if Jesus was
speaking to them. One of the guys said that he could not read it because he is
far-sighted, so I read this portion to him: Jesus said to the soul:
“Be not afraid of
your Savior, O sinful soul. I make the first move to come to you, for I know
that by yourself you are unable to lift yourself to me. Child, do not run away
from your Father; be willing to talk openly with your God of mercy who wants to
speak words of pardon and lavish his graces on you. How dear your soul is to
Me! I have inscribed your name upon My hand; you are engraved as a deep wound
in My Heart.”
You should have
seen the look on that man’s face when I read the last few sentences. He could
not believe that Jesus would say to him, “How dear your soul is to Me!” He was
probably thinking to himself, ‘Me? Jesus? This soul who has disappointed and
hurt my own mom and dad, my children, my wife, my grandparents, and my friends
by lying and stealing from them—such despicable soul is precious to Jesus?’
What kind of extravagant love does Jesus have for me? What kind of extravagant
sacrifice did Jesus make for me?
In the few short
hours I spent in that room hearing confessions, I sensed their anger,
impatience, and pride. They knew they were sorry in some way, but some of them
believed that they were justified in what they had done. Many admitted that
they were serving time in prison a second time for committing the same crime
that had landed them in prison the first time.
Don’t we also make
mistakes over and over again? Aren’t these the kind of things that divide
us--our pride, feelings of superiority, ethnicity? Aren’t these keeping us from
washing each other’s feet? Jesus said, “for I know that by yourself you
are unable to lift yourself to Me.” Jesus had to show us how to be humble and
so at the Last Supper he took off his outer garments and wrapped a towel around
his waist like a servant. Then he poured water on the disciples’ dirty feet and
washed them. We too have to shed our pride, superiority, selfishness, and
everything else that keeps us from serving others. Jesus was showing us how to
love as He loved. Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to
the Father. Jesus loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end. That
night of the Last Supper, Jesus reminded us again of His extravagant love and
His extravagant sacrifice.
One of the men in
the doctor’s room had his head down in tears and said to me, “Father, can you
pray for me and my family right now? My wife is in jail at this moment
too. Please pray with me right now that I can be a better model for my children
and my wife.” Jesus calls us his brothers and sisters and he calls us his
friends. So we share intimately in His life, but this also means that we must
carry on His mission and follow His example by serving, by loving, our brothers
and sisters.