Scripture Reflections

On this solemn day we join the entire church in prayer at the foot of the Cross. We hope these videos, prayers, and songs help deepen your prayer for Good Friday.

Rev. Victoria Carr-Ware, Ecumenical and Multifaith Campus Minister, preaches on one of the Seven Last Words of Christ: "“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mt 27:46) 

Pray the Stations of the Cross using the video reflections led by members of our community, and you can follow along and join in the prayer using the attached text. 

During the Paschal Triduum we will be posting video reflections and prayers alongside the playlists featuring songs we would have sung at the Chapel of St. Ignatius. We hope this enriches your prayer during these holy days. Check the sidebar for more information about prayer opportunities we are offering on Thursday and Friday, as well as links to local live liturgy offerings. 

On Holy Thursday, Tammy Liddell, Director of Campus Ministry, preaches on the readings.  

 Photo by Kym MacKinnon on Unsplash 


View Scripture Readings

The Easter Triduum starts tomorrow. These three days are the pinnacle moment of the liturgical year, when the Church remembers and celebrates Jesus’s passion, crucifixion and resurrection. The Gospel story for today first invites me to pause and reflect back on what has led us to this point in Jesus’s life.

With each passing day, I imagine that it has been evident to Jesus that his prophetic word and work may ultimately be met with death. The consequences were becoming clearer as he continued his mission that challenged the social order of his time and threatened those in power.

As he inevitably faces an impending arrest, Jesus also knows that one of his closest friends is going to be an accomplice in his conviction. When I pause to imagine what Jesus could possibly be going through in this moment, his humanity is revealed to me. I imagine Jesus, who, scared by what’s to come and utterly heartbroken, experiences a depth of suffering that hits his core. In today’s world, with all that weighs heavy on our own hearts and cuts us to our core, Jesus is our companion, who intimately knows what we’re going through because he has been there too.

In the first reading and the psalm, we hear from Isaiah and the psalmist, who, in the midst of their own tribulations, express their assurance in God that gives them strength for the journey ahead. Their belief that God is with them and will not give up on them, is what keeps them steady in the face of vulnerable uncertainty. As Jesus sat at the table with his disciples, perhaps these words of faith echoed in his ears, helping him hold fast to his faith in God and know in the depths of his heart that his suffering will not be the end of the story.

Isaiah proclaims, “God is near! God is [our] help!” May we today lean into trusting that reality. May we open ourselves towards God just as we are, with all that we are feeling and holding, no matter the strength of our faith right now, believing that Jesus is close to our hearts, and knowing that God will see us through, no matter what.

Megan Kush, Campus Minister for Pastoral Care

“From my mother’s womb…” Both the prophet Isaiah and the psalmist reference for us today the silent mystery of our beginnings, and God’s ever-present influence throughout the span of our lives. Both these writers remind us that God’s care and empowering grace have been acting on us before we knew ourselves or had a conscious thought. Even before any human being knew us or loved us, God was at work in us: giving us our unique identity, calling us to be servants, and strengthening us to rise above adversity.

John’s gospel brings us to that table of the Last Supper, but not for the breaking of bread or washing of feet, those enduring and powerful symbols of presence and selfless service which we will recount later this week. Instead, the behind-the-scenes drama moves front and center: intrigue among disciples, predictions of betrayal, treacherous deeds set in motion, false promises of solidarity. Jesus is deeply troubled, and rightly so. It is a moment of crisis, and an interpersonal mess. Is it possible that Jesus, like Isaiah, felt that he had toiled in vain and uselessly spent his strength? Is it possible that Jesus, like the psalmist, felt that he was put to shame, in need of rescue, safety, and deliverance from wicked forces? Quite possible.

And still, Jesus, deeply troubled, summons a deeper wisdom. “From my mother’s womb…” Jesus knew the sort of care and grace that Isaiah describes: God giving an identity and a vocation of service. Jesus knew the sort of care and grace that the psalmist describes: God giving strength and ability to act with justice in all circumstances. Jesus leaned into this care and grace with the full force of his being, which enabled him to love until the end.

Was this same care and grace available to Judas, Peter, and the Beloved Disciple? Yes! In this short space I cannot speak to their individual choices made in the complexity of their humanity. Judas, especially, was such a severe scandal to the early church that the evangelist made sense of it for his community by attributing this betrayal to Satan’s influence. I will say that in all of it, the Beloved Disciple – that one who perhaps trusted and grounded in Jesus’ love more than any other – did remain close, closest, even to the foot of the cross.

Is this same care and grace available to us who follow in the footsteps of Isaiah, psalmist, Jesus, and faltering disciples? Yes! This is a moment of crisis for sure, for all of us. While universal in scope, it is also very personal and we’re each impacted according to the circumstance of our lives. We’re all hurting in some way. Still and always, God is at work in us: confirming our deepest identity, forming us for service of others, kindling the courage that we have the capacity to weather this storm. Lean in, my friends.

Bill McNamara, Campus Minister for Liturgical Music

View Scripture Readings

My feet are tired today, after a long walk in the neighborhood. I imagine Jesus’ feet were tired. He had walked for a long time, crisscrossing throughout the land – teaching, healing, reconciling, feeding, liberating, calling disciples, making friends, and above all, proclaiming God’s love, justice, and mercy. Jesus’ feet had taken him to many places of encounter, where he embodied the message of God we hear in our first reading from the prophet Isaiah.

In that last week, before he makes his final journey into Jerusalem, before he is swept up so quickly into a confrontation which ends in death, he pauses again at the home of his beloved friends: Martha, Lazarus, and Mary. Perhaps Mary of Bethany anticipated the impending calamity, sensing that the powers that be were determined to kill him. Or maybe she just desired in that moment to move, to act, out of love for a weary beloved one. Whatever her motivation, she moves with care and extravagance, offering expensive perfumed oil for his feet, wiping them with her hair, a sign of deep intimacy and love. I imagine her doing this prayerfully: with a heart grateful for all the places where those feet led Jesus in his lifetime, and I see her praying for all the places his feet would take him in the days ahead. I watch Mary embodying what it means to love authentically, intimately, with the best we have to offer. I imagine that days later, Jesus remembered her as he knelt to wash his disciples’ feet, blessing the feet of friends that had traveled with him, and still had far to go.

As I consider tired feet today, I wish I could anoint the feet of the ones caring for our community and providing essential services. I imagine blessing their weary feet, praying for all the lives they touch each time they leave their home to serve our city’s most vulnerable (and all of us). I also imagine taking up the perfumed oil and anointing those who are sick. Those who are lonely. Those who are afraid. Those who are overwhelmed. Those who are brokenhearted. I imagine blessing all of us who are weary. I dream of each of us responding with extravagant intimacy to one another, just like Mary did, sharing love, kindness, tenderness, and offering one another wholeheartedly what is most precious and authentic. I imagine the fragrance of our loving kindness filling each of our homes. Our city. Our world.

I imagine Mary of Bethany, jar in hand, showing us how to live and love in our weary world.

JoAnn Lopez, Campus Minister for Liturgy and Resident Minister in Campion Hall