Changed times – unchanged mission

Today’s first reading was written during the dark days of the Babylonian exile. The Israelites were sadly unable to engage in their familiar practice of temple worship. 

No doubt like us, in this time of social isolation, some days they took comfort in their unchanged identity as God’s children and some days they felt lost and without purpose. 

However we are feeling, we can declare in faith, along with Isaiah’s Suffering Servant, ‘all the while my cause was with the Lord’. 

Our mission hasn’t changed. Estranged as we feel, we are still called to be a light to others.
 
We can take comfort from the Gospel reading too. All throughout Holy Week we witness the repeated failure of Jesus’ closest followers to understand what he was doing and to stick by him on his salvific path of suffering.

It seems Jesus chose ordinary, flawed human beings to be his disciples and he continues to do so today. 

Our flaws do not disqualify us. Like Peter, we will inevitably fail him, but we must never fail, like Judas, to return and ask God’s forgiveness.