for March 27
Friday of the Fourth Week in Lent

If it weren’t for Facebook and Instagram, I wouldn’t know how some of my family and friends are doing—or quite so much about what my children are up to. But lately, I’ve been more tempted than usual to quit my accounts. The reassurances that fill my news feed have started to feel like so many potato chips. I may not be able to stop with just one, but no matter how much I consume, I’m not really satisfied.

And the reassurance found in today’s readings isn’t that things will be all right. Quite the opposite: the book of Wisdom and the fourth gospel remind us today that there will be suffering.

Listen to what the wicked say among themselves: “let us beset the just one, who is obnoxious to us. . .” It’s not just that living as a child of God leads inevitably to suffering. It’s that the wicked of this world recognize the justice of God and have every intention of snuffing it out. The wicked may be blinded, but they will make the innocent suffer. 

In today’s gospel, Jesus seems aware of this too. He is hesitant to go up to Jerusalem because his preaching and ministry are a threat to powerful religious leaders. And they want to kill him. Even “the inhabitants of Jerusalem” seem to know this, if only in a confused way. Perhaps Jesus is the Christ, they think; certainly, that will cost his life.

Both a general air of foreboding (that matches our national mood) and a very specific recognition of the high cost of discipleship hang over today’s readings. Any reassurance we seek then, must be a match for this; we need something stronger than the cheap grace of an online post to sustain us in the suffering that we know will come, that is already here.

Consider, then, the Book of Psalms. There is a psalm appointed in each day’s scriptures, but they can be hard to appreciate, since we usually encounter them only in small parts. The psalms do not mince words about how hard it is to live as God’s people. They do not gloss over the evil and troubles that we are sure to encounter—nor, the very human desire that God would just hurry up and rescue us. The psalms give voice to the full and unpretty range of human experience, confident that God hears the cry of our despair.

Today’s psalm contains one of my very favorite verses in all of scripture: “The Lord is near to all the brokenhearted.”

Human hearts break in uncountable ways: evil, stupidity, weakness, plain dumb luck. It has taken me many years of parenting to realize that ‘a kiss will make it better’ is an inadequate response to real hurt. I try now only to say, “I am here”—which is, after all, what God offers us. The One who defeated sin and death by raising Jesus to life promises to be near us, the brokenhearted.
—BJ Brown

Today’s readings are available at the US Conference of Catholic Bishops website.