Reflection for April 1

When Jesus says, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34), “he makes himself one, not only with my pain but with my sin—because I myself, and you yourselves, and all of us ourselves, are sometimes victims of others and sometimes torturers of others and sometimes both, and when we recognize this we are, as Jesus says to the scribe, ‘not far from the kingdom.’” To know this deeply is to do the work of Holy Week (Debra Dean Murphy, “Palms and passion,” CC blogs network, quoting Fleming Rutledge).