Monday of Holy Week
Today's Mass Readings
This is our last week before Easter and the holiest week of our Catholic liturgical year. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week prepare us to enter the Triduum: Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Vigil. Today’s gospel passage from John demonstrates this preparation. It begins with the words “six days before Passover” (Jn. 12:1), which in itself indicates the importance of time. The reading is placed on Monday of Holy Week, and, in John’s gospel, Jesus will be crucified at the same time the Passover lambs are being killed. Additionally, in today’s gospel reading, we see other foreshadowing of what is to come. Judas Iscariot is firmly established as “the one who would betray him” and a thief (Jn. 12:4). After Mary anoints Jesus’ feet, Jesus responds to Judas’s question by indicating that Mary’s anointing is prefiguring of his burial anointing. The passage ends with a foreboding sense of what is to come – further controversy about who Jesus is.
And who is Jesus? As the psalm tells us, “The Lord is my light and my salvation” (Ps. 27:1a). The first reading from Isaiah tells us that Jesus is the servant whom God upholds, upon whom the Spirit rests. Indeed, Jesus is the light for the nations, bringing us out from our dungeon of sin (cf. Is. 42:6). This is our Lord, Jesus: accused by the high priests, reclining with Lazarus, served by Martha, anointed by Mary, and turned over by Judas the betrayer. Clearly he was one of us: a man with friendships, a man with unjust adversaries. But just as clearly, he was not simply one of us: God’s servant upon whom the Spirit rests, the light and salvation of the world.
This is the mystery that confronts us in these last days of Lent: our God as human, here to save us from our sins through his life, death, and resurrection. Today and throughout this week, let us take time to meditate on this mystery. Let us be prepared to share in his passion and death that we may more fully appreciate the gift of his resurrection!
- Maria Morrow