It’s no surprise how much division exisits in this world. What started with Adam and Eve certainly still shows up everywhere today.

Some will say, in avoiding confrontation: “I may not agree with what you’re doing, but hey, ‘you be you’,” and then shrug and stay quiet when maybe another viewpoint or insight into that situation might have been the voice of reason the other person needed to hear.

Sometimes the Spirit nudges us to make a difference by using our voice, but of course to use it with love.

Other times, we so wish to address clear tensions that we find it impossible to stay quiet, responding with all the humanity and little to no reliance on The Spirit of Wisdom, which does nothing but expand that dividing line.

I began thinking about this during a powerful homily at our church this particular Palm Sunday, followed by meditations by both Jeff Cavins and Father Mike Schmit on Hallow, which I know was no accident. I believe God is so powerful that He can choose to use anything to achieve His Plan for our salvation. I mean, He promised us this with His Word in John 3: “God brings all things together for thr good of those who love Him”.

The theme of yesterday was that ALL of us are Judas, ALL of us are Peter, and ALL of us are Barabas. At one time or another in our lives, we each do or say, or refrain from doing or saying something that betrays another’s trust, that doesn’t speak the truth, that turns a blind eye to something we should speak up about, or whatever is done or said out of fear or the pride of simply listening to our own selves instead of His Voice.

So when I hear that those who commit crimes should be put to death by another human being, or even the overt anger we impose on those whose ideas or decisions we disagree with, I think of these reflections yesterday and can’t help but wonder how we can think we deserve to exercise that kind of power over another human being? I mean, without a doubt, justice should be executed for an injustice to society, but to what extent? Do those perpetrators deserve to die? Or do they deserve to be punished but given the space to repent if they so choose?

Our pastor commented yesterday that the difference between Peter and Judas was that Peter repented. The difference between the two robbers who hung on Jesus’ right and left was that one of them repented.

Considering a prisoner today, if visited and offered a bit of love and therefore some mercy, who’s to say that gesture wouldn’t spark some desire for change?

In today’s readings, in a canicle of Sirach, is this phrase which I think emphasizes this point: “Come to our aid, O God of the Universe, and put all the nations in dread of you! Raise your hand against the Heathen, that they may realize your power. As you have used us to show them your holiness, so now use them to show us your glory. Thus they will know, as we know, that there is no God but you.”

I think we tend to limit God’s power. Just because we can’t see it, does not mean it is not constantly at work. I need to remind myself of this and thinking of Sirach’s statement about how He can use the objectively bad words and deeds in our world and bring about a part of His Plan of salvation, can we lean in more to Jesus, better work with Him, and let God do God’s work?

In today’s Magnificat and the Gospel reading where Peter pronounced he would ‘lay down his life’ for Jesus, St. Augustine’s meditation on this really emphasizes my personal reflections on this. He writes how Jesus, the ultimate teacher corrects Peter and reminds him that he is weak until in and of himself: “What Peter was offering in his body, then, happened in his soul.yet he didn’t precede the Lord on death as he rashly presumed, but (he did so) in another way that he thought. For before the Lord’s death and resurrection, he both died by his denial and came to life again by his lamentation. But he died because he was proudly presumptuous, and he came to life again because the Lord looked kindly on him.”

We are so much smaller than our Creator and yet we tend to think and act otherwise. We only have a few more days left to this Holy Week. I’ve heard several times when I’ve lamented on how often I’ve failed on my Lenten promises, so I want to share this with you: it is not too late. It is never to late to turn feom our ways and look toward Jesus, the true way, truth, and life.

“Christ bore our sins in his own body on the cross so that we might die to sin and be alive to all that is good.” -Liturgy of the Hours, evening, March 29, 2026.