The whole panoply of human reactions is on display this Sunday. The landscape of popularity is simply treacherous. Human loyalty is as fickle as the shifting sand in the desert. The Gospel read at the beginning projects victory. The Passion heard just only is wrapped in pain and sorrow. From hero to zero, Christ was acclaimed only to be condemned.
What then should our response be?
In the face of human treachery, the natural tendency is to react with outrage but the only proper response to it is silence. Holy Week marks the beginning of a powerful silence to allow us to embrace and enter the depth of what Christ would undergo for the salvation of our souls.
The week is heavy and is ordinarily filled with frenetic activities. Flowers to be arranged, statues and images to be veiled, then come Maundy Thursday—the washing of feet and adoration until midnight. Good Friday—Veneration of the Cross and the Easter Vigil—all 9 Readings and baptisms by immersion. There are many things to consider and to be done. Yet this is the week of Mary of Bethany. She sits to contemplate the Lord in His Passion. And the one path that can lead to a profound and prayerful contemplation is silence.
Silence is the language of God’s presence. It is almost like Jesus peeled back the curtain of His divinity so that we can peer behind the scenes to savour His humility at work. He speaks but mostly in silent recesses of our hearts.
It is not a silence of inaction or inactivity. Rather it is a silence which is intentionally slow. One of the foci we should have is our need. Indeed we have so many wants that we can be distracted by them. We eat, entertain, shop and travel believing that all these will make us happy. Or that these activities will complete us. However what we may fail to recognise is that they may hide our real need.
Our need to be saved. There is ugliness and there is a lot of that during this week. Even as we get first-hand experience of treachery at work, still we can be distracted because whatever Christ had to undergo and endure, it was to save us.
The challenge is if we need salvation. Nothing of the treachery makes sense if we do not require salvation. If we have no need of a Saviour, then what Jesus went through was plainly stupid and unnecessary. Perhaps Pope Francis’ primary concern with God’s mercy stems from this truth. God wants so much to save us and mercy is how He reaches out to us. The foremost image for God’s mercy, according to the Pope, is the “Field Hospital”. The Church is the place where wounded and traumatised souls are treated.
Right now, the earthquake in Myanmar is fresh in our memory and the urgency for charitable outreach is also vital. People want to help but as in many disasters today, it has also spawned a modern-day phenomenon for some have developed a taste for what is called “disaster tourism”. Have you watched videos of people who stand around filming a tragedy so that they can have the thrill of being the first to post it on social media? There are some who visit sites of calamities even with the noble intention of helping the victims but nevertheless, they are still driven by a curiosity or a fascination with disasters.
Translate that to a hospital setting. A hospital is meant for those who are sick and need treatment. Any salutary or sanitary setting which is targeted towards those who are not sick is merely cathartic or simply therapeutic. On Friday Bishop came to launch the Perjalanan Salib and I happened to sit next to him and with the new renovation, I can see outside across the street. The crawl sign flashing massage, massage, massage. A massage is therapeutic because it helps to relieve aches and tension. Feeling good is a good feeling but feeling good is not necessarily what we need. In fact, to be good is miles apart from feeling good. To be good is our goal and quite regularly one actually feels bad even as one tries to be good. A good example is to apologise. How often is it that one refuses to apologise (to be good) because it feels lousy for one feels like a loser having to be the first to say, “I am sorry”? Hence, religion or our religious observance is meant to deepen our need for salvation. Our rituals are targeted at highlighting this need. While therapy is good for our mental health and personal growth, it does not guarantee our salvation.
If we have no need of Christ’s salvation, it does not take much for our rituals to become therapeutic treatments which do not really save the soul. A spatreatment only makes us feel good about ourselves and no more.
Silence is therefore unnerving because it penetrates the darkness of our heartsthat are eclipsed by self-will and sin. It is there in our restless hearts that Christ fights to save our souls. The only way we can appreciate His salvation is when we allow the silence to challenge us, challenge our sin and challenge our apathy toward His salvation. Silence is for us to say, “I need you, my Saviour. I need you more than I need air to breathe”.
