Saturday of the Fifth Week of Lent

My Dear Good People,

Here is a digression for the daily Scripture Readings. It’s a tale from Holy Family Motherhouse—a true tale.

We have a number of Sisters who have come to us from other countries, and for whom English is not their first language. One of them was a resident student at our Academy who entered our Congregation shortly after graduating. She is quite fluent in English, though with a slight accent, and she has, as can be expected, some difficulty with words that are not frequently used in conversation. She doesn’t like to read in public because, well, you can imagine why.

Earlier this week when the assignment was posted for Stations of the Cross, this Sister’s name was listed. She came to me on Sunday with a plan (she’s a good one for ‘plans’!) for the Stations of the Cross.

How about, she said, if I let the senior Sisters read the Stations Friday night? They’ll like that. I’ll hold the microphone and the candle for each Sister and ….

 I answered, How about if you read each Station?

The next day, Sister said to me,

I answered, How about if you read the Stations. I know God loves to hear you read them.

Last night before the Stations, Sister came to me with the booklet.

Mother, how about if you hear me read them to you now, because there are some hard words I don’t know. I think someone else should read them tonight….

And I said, And what do you think God would want you to do?

Sister looked up at me and said softly, I think He’d want me to read them, and I know that my Sisters will forgive me if I make mistakes.

I looked at this little Sister across from me and I saw, so clearly in my mind’s eye, our Jesus struggling in the Garden of Gethsemane, very afraid of what His Father was asking Him to do, but knowing all along that in the end He would bow before the Will of His Father and surrender willingly, lovingly, to the Cross. But in that moment in the small room where Sister and I sat, I also saw Jesus, shedding tears of Blood there in the Garden, looking down through the ages at all of us who would one day embrace the crosses that the Father would send to us. And I wondered if perhaps the love with which souls make an act of surrender just might be the angel who came to comfort Him in the Garden (Luke 22:43).

By the way, Sister read the Stations last night

with great care and love.  No need for forgiveness.