How do I keep choosing love and surrender, even when it feels like “#night” has fallen — when Mass is canceled, the altar is gone, and my heart aches for a miracle that has not yet come❓
Gospel
Reclining at table with his disciples, Jesus was deeply troubled and testified,
“Amen, amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.”
The disciples looked at one another, at a loss as to whom he meant.
One of his disciples, the one whom Jesus loved,
was reclining at Jesus’ side.
So Simon Peter nodded to him to find out whom he meant.
He leaned back against Jesus’ chest and said to him,
“Master, who is it❓”
Jesus answered,
“It is the one to whom I hand the morsel after I have dipped it.”
So he dipped the morsel and took it and handed it to Judas,
son of Simon the Iscariot.
After Judas took the morsel, Satan entered him.
So Jesus said to him, “What you are going to do, do quickly.”
Now none of those reclining at table realized why he said this to him.
Some thought that since Judas kept the money bag, Jesus had told him,
“Buy what we need for the feast,”
or to give something to the poor.
So Judas took the morsel and left at once. And it was night.When he had left, Jesus said,
“Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.
If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself,
and he will glorify him at once.
My children, I will be with you only a little while longer.
You will look for me, and as I told the Jews,
‘Where I go you cannot come,’ so now I say it to you.”Simon Peter said to him, “Master, where are you going❓”
Jesus answered him,
“Where I am going, you cannot follow me now,
though you will follow later.”
Peter said to him,
“Master, why can I not follow you now❓
I will lay down my life for you.”
Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for me❓
Amen, amen, I say to you, the cock will not crow
before you deny me three times.”
Lent Day 38 Lectio Divina on the word “night“
Some mornings, I wake with the weight of night still on my chest — not just the darkness of the sky, but the quiet ache that lingers from unspoken prayers and restless sleep. I rise anyway, compelled by love and habit, and make my way to the cathedral. Even if the altar is gone and the Mass is canceled, I still need to be there — to offer my intention, to whisper Daniel’s name, to offer up the hope I carry like oil in a fragile jar. This too is a form of worship. Maybe it’s during night that faith grows best — unseen but alive.
At The Glenn, I watch the slow rhythms of animals and children who aren’t bound by calendars or liturgical expectations. They don’t know it’s Holy Week, or that today’s Mass was replaced by a lay-led Communion Service and that the altar was removed from the chapel in anticipation of Holy Thursday. They only know instinct and trust. And still, night will come for them, too — just as it does for me. Not as punishment, but as a veil — softening the harshness of the day, asking me to sit quietly and listen.
I think of the Chrism Mass tonight, the gathering of priests and the blessing of oils — signs of healing, of future sacraments not yet performed. I think of how Jesus walked into betrayal and darkness, not running from it but toward it, arms wide, heart open. I want to be that brave. I want to choose love the way He did — not as a feeling, but as a willful surrender. But some days, I hesitate. Some days, I just feel tired. And yet even that fatigue can be holy if I offer it up.
In my grief for Daniel, night is both my adversary and my companion. It is when I think of him the most. It is when my prayers become raw. It is when I question everything — and still choose to believe. It’s not easy. It never has been. But love, as Fulton Sheen said, is not about having. It’s about giving. It’s about being owned by something greater than myself. And so, even when the altar is gone, even when the priest is missing, even when the answers don’t come — I show up…
We can say that “alongside revelation properly so-called, contained in sacred Scripture, there is a divine manifestation in the blaze of the sun and the fall of night”.[58]
FROM PARAGRAPH 85 OF THE ENCYCLICAL LETTER LAUDATO SI’ OF THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS ON CARE FOR OUR COMMON HOME