Ministry in Motion

On Monday of Holy Week, Christians reflect on events that took place after Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem (which is remembered on Palm Sunday).   As Jesus entered the Temple on this day, He wasn’t gentle. He was righteously angry. Tables overturned. Coins scattered. Voices raised. The Prince of Peace disrupted the status quo—not out of rage, but out of love. He couldn’t bear to see a sacred place turned into a marketplace. A house of prayer reduced to profit. “My house shall be called a house of prayer,  but you are making it a den of thieves.” We also see Jesus curse a fig tree that bore leaves but no fruit—an outward show without inward substance. A powerful metaphor. It’s easy to appear spiritually “leafy”—busy with good works, filled with church-going habits—yet bearing little of the fruit God truly desires: love, justice, mercy, humility.  This Monday invites us to ask: What tables in our hearts need to be overturned? What noise and clutter have drowned o...

  A monastic brother was restless in the community and often moved to anger. So he said: “I will go and live somewhere by myself. And since I shall be able to talk or listen to no one, I shall be tranquil, and my passionate anger will cease.” He went out and lived alone in a cave. But one day he filled his jug with water and put it on the ground. It happened suddenly to fall over. He filled it again, and again it fell. And this happened a third time. And in a rage he snatched up the jug and broke it. Returning to his right mind, he knew that the demon of anger had mocked him, and he said: “Here am I by myself, and he has beaten me. I will return to the community. Wherever you live, you need effort and patience and above all God’s help.” And he rose up, and went back to the monastery.  Have you experienced a cycle, a season, like this? I have. Similar frustrations have raised their ugly heads more times than I care to count...