Father Jason Welle, OFM
ROME — Every Friday throughout the Church year, the faithful remember in a special way the suffering and death of the Lord, a weekly anniversary that yields to Sunday’s glory. The readings presented on Lenten Fridays make the point ever more poignant: the Book of Wisdom recalls the murmuring schemes of the wicked, who whisper, “Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us; he sets himself against our doings...charges us with violations of our training...He boasts that God is his Father...With revilement and torture let us put him to the test” (2:12-19). The lectionary then proceeds to the Gospel of John, recounting those who sought Jesus’ life. Arresting him or finding another way of silencing him would never do; the Gospel bluntly states that they were “trying to kill him.”
These days of imposed immobility — the long lockdown — expose the violent sentiments that scurry and slither within many of us. Whom do I blame for all of this? Who is the source of my frustration? The government? The media? The clergy? The Chinese? Those who ignore the orders to stay at home? Those who give the orders to stay at home? God?
The blame game cannot be a Lenten journey, regardless of how many hours I have spent clicking through answers to it. More revealing for the Christian is not whom I blame, but toward whom I direct my anger. I might aim my rancor toward a president or a prime minister, or toward those who hoard masks and toilet paper...but I likely transfer much of it toward those who are locked up with me and toward myself. They’re the ones who are constantly in my space and I’m the one who has done so little with the interminable time foisted upon me. Obnoxious. As frustration moves from simmer to boil, we recall the sordid voices of those who resented the just one, those who found him insufferable, those who found him toxic.
We have been fasting for more than four weeks in ways we would never have foreseen. Many of us have not done the works of charity we planned because we’re penned in. Many have not done the fasting we planned because we’ve transitioned to anxiety baking. Many have not even done the praying we’d planned because stripped of the ordinary excuse that we’re too busy...we’ve manufactured another. Yet voluntary or not, this has been a Lenten fast like no other, a Lenten fast none shall forget. On this day that recalls the violence directed toward the Lord, we know that if these days teach us a measure of gentleness, a true Lent they have been. If they invite us to suffer with those who suffer more, a true Lent they have been. And if they impart in us compassion not just for the innocent, but for the guilty, then they have revealed something of the hidden counsels of God.
Father Jason Welle, OFM, is a professor and the dean of students of the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies. His teaching and research focus on interreligious dialogue, Muslim-Christian relations, the Franciscan intellectual tradition, and Islamic mysticism, particularly in the medieval period. He holds a Ph.D. in Theological and Religious Studies from Georgetown University and master’s degrees from the University of Notre Dame and the Catholic Theological Union.
