Holy Thursday
Four years ago, I went to Holy Thursday mass at Mission Santa Clara de Asís with my dear friend Emma. As I sat in a spartan wooden chair, my harrowed mind ignored the agony in the garden, failed to attend to the washing of the feet. Focusing on my breathing—and my fear that I might soon collapse—I missed much of mass, merely murmuring chants and prayers as a howling monologue arrested my mind.
That Holy Thursday arrived at the apex of my mounting health anxiety, a state of constant physiological arousal and psychological anguish: a persistent fear that I would soon die. That Jesus was to die the next day for my sins and that I was in perfect health offered little solace to a mind convinced that its vessel would soon perish.
Human beings are far from the only creatures concerned with self-preservation, though we are surely the only species who can willfully choose the worse when we know the better. Even worse, we so often fail to know what's good at all—pursuing our own harm with zeal and fervor.
My period of intense health anxiety was posed upon a series of paradoxes: I was so worried about my health that I was making myself sick; I was so intent on protecting my life that I was doing nothing with it; I was so depressed by my own fear of dying that I wanted to kill myself. He who would save his life shall lose it and so on. Any good pursued poorly or without moderation is quickly spoiled.
We can make idols out of nearly anything. I've worshipped cleverness, praised beauty, and obsessed about health. The great danger of idol-making is not the vanity of supposing ourselves great but rather the foolishness of supposing God is so small.
When Pilate asked the Jews who they would set free to celebrate the Passover, they passed over Jesus in favor of Barabbas, a thief and murderer. The name Barabbas means Son of the Father. Staring at the Son of the Father alongside the Son of God, the crowd cried out for an imitation in lieu of the real thing. Like those Jews, we seek freedom in sin rather than in obedience to the truth. Staring directly at our own salvation—freely offered—we choose separation. We make gods out of sins and enslave ourselves.
But always hope rests before us—just three days away.