As we approach the events of Holy Week at the end of the Lenten season we are asked to recount and relive the suffering of Jesus and the joyous transformation of Resurrection on Easter Sunday morning.

Suffering is something that human beings truly understand. We all carry within us our own personal heartaches and disappointments: family members who are ill, children who are not doing well, jobs that have been lost, life that just did not turn out how we had hoped and dreamed it might. We are also mindful of the suffering in the world that a spate of recent natural disasters has highlighted.

As we live with such suffering around us and within our own personal lives, it is natural to ask the question: Why? Why is the nation of Haiti having to suffer so? Why do thousands of children around the world go hungry each day? Why would a loving God allow me to suffer my personal heartaches?

Recently the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States spoke at the National Cathedral in Washington about the suffering in Haiti. Her words resonate in all of our living. “The reality is that life is not safe or predictable, but what we do with our lives gives them meaning. God does not cause suffering or punish people with it, but God is present and known more intimately in the midst of suffering. Above all, we become more human through our broken hearts.”

As we follow the events of Holy Week may we come to understand that a loving God did not cause Jesus to suffer his trials. But rather, a loving God traveled with him every step of the way ultimately to the Resurrection. Through the humanity of that one broken heart of Jesus of Nazareth, even today we are able to get a glimpse of the Divine.

Come join us on our Lenten journey at Little Brown Church. Travel with us in all our flawed humanity and our broken hearts until we too come to that place of resurrection and transformation. And may this mystery which is our life become blessed with a love that knows no bounds.

Faithfully, Mary

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