He Loved Them to the End

On Holy Thursday, Debra Black reflects on how Jesus loved His own in the world and He loved them to the end.

It was a short time as measured by movement of the sun; but if measured as moments of pain are really measured, by the intensity of agony, those few hours were longer than the whole duration of the world. For we cannot conceive what our Lord endure in those hours. His body was designed for suffering, and the power of His divinity was used only to avoid the remedy that human weakness would otherwise have found, that of loss of consciousness, and even of life, through sheer pain. (Dom Eugene Boylan)

It is Holy Week and today, Holy Thursday, the Triduum begins. It can be difficult to enter into Jesus’ Passion and death. It’s one thing to know He suffered so much for us. It is another thing to realize He suffered so much because of us. Then to take in that He didn’t need to; He wanted to. It’s simultaneously sobering and consoling. Consoling because, while we aren’t capable of understanding the magnanimity of His unconditional love, our eyes are opened just a little to it. Sobering because as Father Edward McIlmail, L.C. puts it, “For it [Palm Sunday] is a liturgy that points up the Jekyll and Hyde in all of us.”

This is because we’re in a perpetual struggle of surrendering to God and turning away from Him as we seek our own will. And it carries through into prayer too. When we’re troubled and we feel more of the weight of our cross, there is often the moment where (to His great delight!) the heart is ready to surrender to God, ready to name the pain and be still with Him. The Divine Healer is ready to heal that wound to the extent we let Him into it. Too often, however, in the very next breath, the mind flips right back into scan-and-plan mode. We go right back into mentally reviewing the details of our cross, scanning the possible actions and outcomes, imagining the possible conversations to steer the situation the direction we want it to go. And we can be talking to God the entire time, but it is a one-way conversation talking at Him rather than with Him.

Lent has been the concentrated period of time for us to discipline our will in a variety of ways so as to give up the scan-and-plan habits of a controlling spirit. And it concludes in the Triduum. Making extra effort in our prayer this week to enter into His Passion can be life-changing if we desire it. After all, Jesus does.

Before the feast of Passover,
Jesus knew that his hour had come
to pass from this world to the Father.
Fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power
and that he had come from God
and was returning to God. (John 13:1a, 3)

This was the context within which Jesus prepared for, entered into, and suffered His passion and resurrection. But in His heart was …

He loved His own in the world
and He loved them to the end. (John 13: 1b)

Nothing further need be said. We need only to keep this at the forefront of our heart too as we walk this passion with Jesus. We are His, and He loved us to the end. And still does.

Love is patient, love is kind
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. (1 Corinthians 13: 4a, 7-8a)

This Easter, may you experience a resurrection of heart brought into the Sacred Heart of Jesus. For the Greater Glory of God,

In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:22)

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Making extra effort in our prayer this week to enter into His Passion can be life-changing if we desire it. After all, Jesus does. #catholicmom