The Holiest Week

I just returned home from the most luminous visit to Bellarmine Jesuit Retreat House outside Chicago, where I was leading a retreat on sacred attention for 70 of the loveliest people (including my in-laws, who drove four hours to surprise me by attending!)

I joke all the time about the fact that, even though I have been deeply researching and thinking and praying about attention for six years now, I…am often not the best at practicing it. This is in the nature of the task, I think—none of us will ever be perfect at paying attention. It’s not a skill that can be mastered. Instead, it’s a gentle call to a constant act of reorientation.

That reorientation is so easy to grasp onto outside the confines of our busy daily lives, and I was on the lookout for what graces and truths might be revealed to me along the way, miles and miles away from the laundry and the vacuuming I never seem to get to, the grocery list and the doctor’s appointments I always seem to need to schedule more of.

And as I made my way through my presentations on the work of some of my most beloved wisdom figures—Simone Weil, Madeleine Delbrêl, Greg Boyle, Etty Hillesum, Corita Kent, Mary Oliver—what struck me for the first time was how very free they all were in one central area. Their collective voice came to me softly as I walked the hallowed halls of Bellarmine, whispering to me a tender truth I needed to hear: “You don’t have to judge. You just have to love.”

As we enter into the Triduum, I'm thinking a lot this year about Judas—about his betrayal, his greed, the low depths to which he would stoop. But I’m also thinking about how Jesus welcomed him into his circle, welcomed him at the table. I’m thinking about how at the Last Supper Jesus washed Judas’ feet too, how in the garden on Good Friday, he did not deny his kiss.

I don’t think it’s unusual to find ourselves in a judgmental frame of mind—it’s only human to grumble about someone else’s decisions or priorities, to assure ourselves we would have acted differently. But I came away from this retreat thinking that turning away from judgment, as so many of my heroes did, is actually an invitation to a wild and unbounded freedom. The freedom to love.

Think of all the times you make a snap judgment about someone. Think about how that judgment manifests itself within your body. And then imagine choosing instead to simply delight in that person’s beautifully unique expression of the image of God. Pay attention to how that shift feels in your body too. I practiced this on the long train ride home from the airport yesterday, and what it felt like was a deep exhale, followed by a profound intake of fresh air.

I’m speaking here about people we encounter fleetingly as well as people who are fixtures in our lives—people it’s sometimes easier to categorize (and thus judge) than it is to give them the space to express to us who they really are.

As we dwell this week on one of the most profound examples of suffering—physical, psychological, spiritual, social—ever put down on paper, I find myself seeing anew the love that animates Jesus’ every free choice to endure the torture that was visited upon him. I think about how in my evangelical days, I knew so well that Scripture in Galatians that declares: it is freedom for which Christ set us free.

This week, I got a little glimpse into another understanding of what that freedom means. The freedom to love. The freedom to discard our preconceived notions about other people, the shortcuts of judgment that keep us from seeing and knowing others as God sees and knows (and loves) each one of us.

As the retreat came to a close, I started to realize that we might also make that choice with regard to ourselves: instead of judging ourselves harshly, looking for every failing, perhaps we could extend ourselves a taste of that freedom, by gazing upon ourselves, too, with love.

(I do want to be clear that harmful and violent actions must still be decried and denounced, most especially this week as we dwell on a horrific torture and execution carried out by the state, at the behest of the powerful. Pope Leo is doing an amazing job of this. If you missed his Palm Sunday homily, you can read it here.)

Lent is different every year. The Triduum is different every year. This year I am grateful for the gift that was offered to me: the freedom of choosing to love rather than to judge. I’ll find a small stone to memorialize it, and I’ll place it with all the others I’ve gathered over the years, a collection of little monuments of mercy from days gone by.

Wherever you find yourself, I hope you have a beautiful Triduum and Easter.

Here are some prayers to accompany us as we make our Holy Week pilgrimage, a triptych I wrote for the Jesuits called “From the Garden to the Tomb.” You can read all of the prayers here.

A Few Hopeful Things:

—It’s been a joy to be part of the Jesuit Conference’s “In Praise Of” Lenten series, and my essay (on…you guessed it…the library!) was shared last week, with beautiful art by Allison Beyer. You can read it here. I’ll be back next week to tell you about an exciting update to this project, but for now…libraries!

—My friends Eric Clayton and Shannon Evans O’Brien have the sweetest children’s book coming out soon about the seagull on the roof of the chapel during the papal enclave. The art is beautiful, and the story is so charming! Get it here!

—My friend Elizabeth Berget’s new book Love Like a Mother will be released in early May! If you are hungry for some deep and beautiful reflection on God as Mother, you will definitely want to pop over and pre-order right away (for 40% off!)

—Finally, as if by sacred fiat, our Korean spice viburnum always ends up blooming just in time for Good Friday. The blossoms are so fragrant, and I always bring a few inside to serve as my own myrrh, my own participation in the burial of Christ. These little buds will be ready for the task on Friday, and I hope their sweet scent will carry me all the way to Easter.

Loving alongside you,
Cameron